Soon, study MBA and engineering in distance mode

In the not-too-distant future, you could become an engineer or earn an MBA sitting at home.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body for professional courses, will allow colleges to offer engineering and MBA via distance mode, overturning the tough stand it has maintained for years. The council had earlier stated that professional courses like engineering required intensive practical training and programmes such as an MBA ought to have several hours of classroom discussions and debates as business had several tones of grey that an aspiring manager must understand.

The AICTE's change of heart will not only augment the number of professionals in India, but will also prove to be a game-changer as the fees will be a lot lesser than what students pay to attend college. But every candidate will have to sit for an exit or a licentiate examination, termed as the National Eligibility Test, at the end of the course before she or he is declared an engineer or the MBA or MCA degree is awarded.

A student should have completed a degree or a diploma in the classroom mode and attained a minimum of five years of work experience before they can take up a professional course via the distance learning mode.

"This will be a mixed mode of education—while practical training will take place face-to-face, theory can be conducted using ICT," AICTE chairman S S Mantha said.

The decision was taken on the recommendation of a committee headed by former IIT-Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande and IIT-Kanpur chairman M Anandkrishnan who studied the possibility of offering engineering and other professional courses through the distance mode. As Mantha explained, all professional courses except architecture and pharmacy can be conducted virtually. But a student or a class XII pass-out seeking his/her first diploma or degree cannot sign up for a BTech under this scheme.

"Essentially, there will be an entrance test and an exit exam that all students signing up for a course under the distance education mode will have to take. We have to preserve the quality of students at both the stages," Mantha added. The AICTE is currently drawing up rules and the approval process for colleges wanting to offer courses though the virtual medium. Interested colleges can apply from March 1.

Distance education:
Currently, 14 open universities and 172 other institutions offer courses in higher education via the distance mode to about 40 lakh students. Distance education courses are regulated by the Distance Education Council (DEC), a body that operates under IGNOU.

Distance education is largely confined to general streams. Some universities like IGNOU offer technical courses like an MCA but tie-up with colleges so that students can use their laboratories for practical training.

There was a tripartite committee comprising the UGC, DEC and AICTE which used to examine applications from institutes interested in offering courses via distance education, but the committee was almost defunct as the AICTE maintained that professional courses could not be imparted virtually.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-08/news/36215867_1_distance-mode-professional-courses-distance-education-council

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ICAI: Experts warn against marketing of higher education

As the pre-Vibrant Gujarat International Conference of Academic Institutions (ICAI) got underway Tuesday, some of the world’s top education experts disagreed with a few objectives of the two-day event, including the state government’s push for private-public partnerships (PPP) in higher education via an industry-academia link and signing of MoUs.

The experts — from the World Bank and Canadian, British, American and Indian institutions of higher learning — warned against emphasis on marketing (including MoU signing), private funding, too much stress on physical infrastructure and heavy reliance on foreign partners, especially for faculty.

Instead, they underlined the need for bringing in an ecosystem that is complex and accepting, not just on campus, but in the cities and towns that house such campuses. They also called for a greater international footfall.

“The degree of internationalisation of a university is inversely proportional to the number of MoUs signed,” said Francisco Marmolejo, the World Bank’s Tertiary Education Coordinator. He outlined some “common mistakes” of those trying to set up so-called “world-class universities”, including a focus on physical infrastructure, supporting only capital costs and not operating costs of an institution, and heavy reliance on foreign partners. A foremost focus of ICAI is, in fact, “faculty exchange”.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of the UK’s Higher Education Academy, Craig Mahoney, pointed out that only two of his country’s 126 universities are private ones.

On how the UK “got to where we are”, Mahoney said that roughly 17% of that country’s 2.5 million university students come from abroad, a point that the University of Toronto’s vice-president Judith Wolfson also made in her speech when she said the Canadian city is home to a huge population not born in that country.

IIMA’s Shailendra Mehta, who spent a year studying the governance structures of the US universities, said his findings make a strong case towards public funding of universities as well as the handing over of trusteeship of these universities to alumni — most of the top 20 US universities’ boards were dominated, some even 100%, by alumni.

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/icai-experts-warn-against-marketing-of-higher-education/1057238/

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Rising cost of education worries parents, survey shows

NEW DELHI: While the cost of private education has always been prohibitive, education in government-run institutions has also increased sharply in the last one month with the HRD ministry taking the decision to hike under-graduate fees in IITs by 80%.

Earlier, the fees for Kendriya Vidyalaya students increased three-fold from Rs 4,500 to Rs 12,000 annually. The KV fee hike impacts 11 lakh students in 1,090 schools. The last fee hike in both cases took place in 2008-09, and has been long overdue.

The decision to hike fees for undergraduate courses from Rs 50,000 to Rs 90,000 annually was taken on Monday at the meeting of the IIT Council. In the case of IIT, the student fees include only 30% of the total operational cost of the institute and comes at a time when the premier tech institutes are working to become self-sufficient.

The mounting cost of education in recent years has eaten into a major part of the household budget. An Assocham survey showed that 65% of parents spend more than half their take-home pay on their children's education, extra co-curricular activities placing significant burden on their family budget.

According to the survey, parents spending on a single child's education has gone up from Rs 35,000 in 2005 to over Rs 94,000 in 2011 on such items and activities as integral to the school curriculum like fees, transport books, uniform, stationery, building fund, educational trips, extra tuitions and extra-curricular activities.

The survey highlights that the rising cost of education, has become a major cause of worry for parents. Majority of parents spend on average more than Rs 18 lakh-20 lakh in raising a child by the time their teen graduates from high school.

According to government data, average private expenditure on secondary education in private schools is as high as Rs 893 per month as compared to only Rs 275 per month in government schools primarily due to difference in high tuition fees in private institutions.

Aggregate public spending on education during the 11th Plan period is estimated at Rs1244,797 crore for both the Centre and states taken together. About 43% of the public expenditure on education was incurred for elementary education, 25% for secondary education and the balance 32% for higher education.

About half of the Central government's expenditure was incurred for higher education and the remaining for elementary (39%) and secondary (12%) education. In the state sector, about 75% of education expenditure is for school education, of which 44% is on elementary education and 30% on secondary education.

Public expenditure on secondary education has increased from 0.78 % in 2007-2008 to 1.05% in 2011-2012.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-09/india/36236512_1_fee-hike-higher-education-secondary-education

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India to digitise national academic database

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), India has started the process of hiring a vendor to digitise the national academic database.

Human resources and Development Ministry (HRD) in September 2011 had an idea of digitising all academic qualifications in the country to allow instant verification and prevent the forgery of academic documents.

The CBSE already conducted a pilot project for the National Academic Depository (NAD), and the results were encouraging. The NAD is a national database of academic qualifications created and maintained in an electronic format.

The CBSE is now looking for a vendor who has the capacity to manage big data of 3.8 million academic records annually. Apart from the CBSE, many major central universities such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), and several other government controlled educational institutes will participate in this initial stage of data digitalisation.

The bidding and awarding of tender is expected to be completed by mid of January.

The NAD will register academic institutions and provide them an access to their national database. After that, the institutions will be access to their database of all academic records they award to students. An individual will not be allowed to alter any academic qualification to ensure that forgery is denied. Employers will also be able to do a background check on candidates via an authentication process, which is expected to be helpful.

After the authentication of the records, the NAD will also provide a copy of academic qualification upon request to any person. A mapping of academic records will allow any individual to have all his or her certificates and degrees clubbed altogether in a single profile.

The NAD will integrate the new database with the government’s Unique Identification (UID) scheme. Under the UID project, a database and software to facilitate an online interaction and exchange of information with the Central Identities Data Repository will be developed by the NAD.

A one-time fee and per transaction fee will be charged as required by the NAD to generate revenue, and the revenue will be shared among the CBSE, academic institutions and the NAD for the services. The rate is to be decided by all stakeholders.

The NAD will be responsible to host and maintain the website that will be used by all stakeholders. The website will show the list of authorised boards in secondary education, as well as a list of degree and diploma awarding institutions in the country. A list of fraudulent universities would be shown on the website.

http://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2013/jan/07/india-digitise-national-database-academic/

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Over 100 foreign educational institutes in Vibrant Gujarat Summit

More than 100 foreign educational institutes are among the over 200 institutes coming to take part in the upcoming Vibrant Gujarat Summit (VGS) 2013, slated to take place in Gandhinagar next week.

Universities and institutes from as many as 30 countries, including the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Finland and Rwanda, among others, will be taking part in the International Conference for Academic Institutions, being organised on January 9 and 10 as part of VGS 2013.

The conference will take place at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) in the state capital.

“More than 200 educational institutes, half of which are from foreign countries, will take part in the conference. The event will provide a platform to our institutes for forging strategic partnerships with international institutions,” said a senior government official.

Top national institutes are also taking part in the two-day conference. He said that the conference, one of the largest of its kind in the country, will also pave the way for internationalisation of higher education in the state through student and faculty exchange, joint research projects, and promotion of R&D and innovation.

Representatives from agencies such as the World Bank, US India Education Foundation, British Council, Australia India Institute, are also slated to take part in the conference.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_over-100-foreign-educational-institutes-in-vibrant-gujarat-summit_1785805

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Different educational boards agree to have similar question papers

NEW DELHI: Come 2014, class 12 students of maths and science from one particular education board will not be able to complain about having to face tougher question papers and marking systems than their counterparts studying under other boards.

The majority of educational boards conducting class 12 exams across the country have agreed in principle to have a common design of question paper to make the school-leaving exams as uniform as possible in terms of difficulty.

This is being done to give students a level playing field. Efforts began in 2010, when 20 educational boards, including the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) adopted the core curriculum in maths and science.

IIT board asks CBSE to work on common design of question paper

In 2011, all 29 boards conducting senior secondary exams had adopted a core curriculum. Taking forward the uniformity, the Apex Board of IIT has asked CBSE to work on a common design of question paper for Class XII exams for mathematics and science subjects.

Coordinating on behalf of the boards, Council of Boards of School Education in India (COBSE), a common platform for all educational boards in the country, has instituted a sub-committee comprising of state board members from Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala and Rajasthan to work on the common design of question paper.

"We are going to have the first batch that will appear in Class XII exams from various boards based on the core curriculum. With a common design of question papers the difficulty level as well as marking system will be equivalent and therefore there will be complete uniformity in the system," said chairman of COBSE as well as CBSE, Vineet Joshi.

The move is also likely to offer a level playing field to science students from different boards while appearing for centralized entrance examinations like the Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE) as well as the single medical entrance test. From this year the JEE (main) merit list to be conducted by CBSE will give 40% weightage to board results.

"Initially, once the design is ready, a pilot run will be introduced by five state boards for class XI. Based on the experience, and in case there is any need for improvement, finally it will be introduced in class XII from 2014. The idea is to have uniformity in the level of difficulty as the curriculum is already uniform so that students get a level playing field," said Puran Chand, joint secretary, COBSE. Once the recommendations of the sub-committee are ready, the matter will be placed at the COBSE for approval.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Different-educational-boards-agree-to-have-similar-question-papers/articleshow/17919188.cms

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Goa wants modulated sex education

Faculty members and students from several higher secondary schools and colleges in Goa want inclusion of gender sensitization in school curriculum, and sex education to be disseminated in an age-appropriate and contextualized manner at all levels of education.

These are among the several suggestions listed by participants during a round table meeting held at Goa college of home science in Panaji organized by the city-based NGO Saad Aangan in collaboration with the colleges. The suggestions would be sent to Justice Verma committee on the law relating to sexual assault and related concerns of gender justice. The students and faculty members felt that both gender sensitization and sex education need to be a foundation subject like environmental studies.

The participants strongly felt that it must be obligatory to have standard operating procedures and protocols in place for police and various personnel under the law while dealing with cases of violations of women's rights. Taking into consideration the nation-wide debate over harsher punishment for rape accused, the participants said that punishments for rape must be harsh enough to create a deterrent effect, but this may not be interpreted to mean an endorsement for death penalty or castration.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-06/goa/36173170_1_gender-sensitization-goa-college-sexual-assault

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Why large section of Indian households today prefer private education over government's?

Indian households are increasingly spending more money on education, and for a majority of households today, children's education is one of the key motivations for saving.

Estimates from National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data reveal that even though food has been a priority in the consumption basket of Indian households, its share has been declining.

On the other hand, the share of many non-food items is on the rise: in particular, education, along with health, durable goods, consumer services and conveyance.

We estimate that the household budget share of education increased from 2% to 7% between 1993-94 and 2011-12. Education has witnessed one of the fastest growth rates among different expenditure heads of Indian households.

While the overall consumer market has grown at 14.5% per annum in nominal terms over the last 5-6 years, spending on education rose by 21% per annum. And, it is not just the same people who are spending more on their children's education.

In 2004-05, 40% of rural and 57% of urban families said they were spending on education. The corresponding numbers jumped to 63% rural and 73% urban in the latest NSSO survey in 2009-10. A number of questions arise.

Is education in India becoming more expensive at all levels or is it only school-level education that is getting costlier? Or, is it higher studies that have been increasingly becoming more costly? Alternatively, do people nowadays willingly opt for educational institutes or courses that charge higher fees? In other words, is the scenario such that a large section of households today prefer private education that comes at a higher price over government's?

What is the annual expenditure by all Indian households on education? Different approaches yield three estimates. It has been common practice in most research approaches to inflate household consumption expenditure estimates from NSSO in order to make it comparable with private final consumption expenditure-domestic (PFCE-domestic), as published by India's National Accounts Statistics (NAS), so that the estimates are representative of the entire private domestic market.

Estimates of PFCE-domestic are significantly higher than household consumption expenditure estimated from the NSSO. This is because PFCE has a comparatively wider coverage that includes expenditure of institutions that deliver religious, educational and health services, houseless and institutional sections of the population, imputed rents on owner-occupied dwellings and price-cost margins on banking and insurance services, all of which are not considered under NSSO.



The 2004-05 consumption expenditure estimated by NSSO at the all-India level was 43.6% of PFCE-domestic, which dipped to 39.5% in 2009-10. Again, the extent of under-reporting varies for different items of consumption. Thus, different sets of estimates of consumer expenditure can be arrived at depending on how under-reporting is corrected in NSSO data set.

In this study, we have used estimates from NSSO after the percentage of under-coverage in NSSO, as against the NAS, has been aligned (as in 2004-05) for all years to ensure comparability over time.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/comments-analysis/why-large-section-of-indian-households-today-prefer-private-education-over-governments/articleshow/17866580.cms

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Latest is, education loans have taken a hit

The demand for education loans is likely to be subdued in the year ahead as a weak economy is forcing students to defer their plans for higher studies till the time the job market in India and abroad sees a major improvement.

Outstanding education loans grew by 10.6% to Rs54,300 crore as on November 30, 2012, compared with a growth of 15.7% in the corresponding period last year, according to sectoral deployment data released by the Reserve Bank of India.

“Going by present indicators, I don’t see any improvement in 2013. Looking at the job market situation in the US, Europe, and to some extent India, the education loan market will be somewhat subdued,” says RK Bansal, executive director of IDBI Bank.

Varghese KI, additional general manager of Federal Bank, says they foresee stagnation of growth in the foreign education loan segment.

Bansal adds that a majority of students is looking to work for sometime before going for higher studies and that even education institutes are giving preference to students with some job experience.

Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of HeadHunters India, agrees, saying companies also want people with work experience who can join immediately, and 2013 is going to be a tough year for freshers.

The aversion to higher studies is not limited to students just out of college. Experienced professionals are also not willing to take on debt and risk quitting a job. “People are always averse to quitting or jumping jobs in a sluggish economy,” says Yogesh Saigal, head, business development, Talisman Advisors. “Why will one quit a stable job and take a loan of Rs12 lakh to go for higher studies? S/he may not even get the same job after completing the degree in a few years.”

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_latest-is-education-loans-have-taken-a-hit_1784934

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Make sex education compulsory in schools

Teaching them young It may be difficult to put a total stop to incidents of rape immediately. But it is certainly possible to educate people on how to counter sexual harassment and domestic violence. Education is an important tool that can help to work towards eradicating this evil.

The fact is that many of us are scared to raise our voices against sexual harassment because of what people will think about us. And perverts take advantage of this. We must start to change this, through education in our schools. The government mustintroduce sex education in the school curriculum and all political parties should support such an initiative.

We are attracted to many things in the West, and imitate quite a few things that are foreign. In the US, sex education is today an integral part of the school syllabus. Most states have this as a subject and the content is updated every year. The importance given to the programme is such that officials of the Minnesota Public School are continuously working on improving the way in which this subject is dealt with in schools.

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/comment_make-sex-education-compulsory-in-schools_1784937

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