Education in India

Details about the Azim Premji University

I met KS Viswanathan, the head of new initiatves at the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) a couple of days ago in Bangalore and asked him for some details about the Azim Premji University (APU). This is what I learnt from a chat with him.

• The APU will be an institution of excellence in the area of education to develop outstanding education thinkers & leaders, and also serve as a think tank for long-term education change and sustainable development. Akin to the IITs, AIIMS, IIMs and the NLSUI respectively focussed on Science & Technology, Medicine, Management and Law, the APU will in effect be an IIE focussed on Education.
• The APU's vision is to promote, conceptualize and create a paradigm shift through development of outstanding leadership, research, knowledge and ideas for education and allied development sectors.
• The objectives of the APU include
  • Creating Intellectual Capital: through research based theory and outstanding, creative and socially committed leaders and thinkers. Expand the frontiers of knowledge in education and allied disciplines
  • Practice informed by sound theory: Serve as a national education resource center and present an alternative authentic voice for educational and social change
  • Demonstrating models for effective development of teachers and education leaders
• The APU has been set up through a section 25 company and will be autonomous and self-funded with no dependency on funds from the Karnataka Government.
• The Azim Premji University Ordinance 2009, was passed by the Karnataka Government in November 2009.
• The APU is being set up on 50 acres of land in Sarjapur, near Bangalore. The land is being provided by the section 25 company, which is acquiring it directly from the owners.
• It will be a fully residential university.
• The APU will not be aiming to recover all its expenditure from tuition fees. Any budgetary gap between income and expenditure will be bridged by funds provided by Section 25 company being established by Azim Premji.
• The first students will join the university in 2011. The APU will start by offering masters level courses and eventually also run a Ph.D. program.
• Apart from the classroom lectures, the students at the APU will be required to do field work in schools as an integral part of their learning.
• The APU, in addition to developing education professionals and contributing to research will work towards strengthening the educational space by:
  • Increasing the public debate on alternative approaches towards educational excellence
  • Creating possibilities and opportunities to promote innovation and piloting of new ideas/approaches
  • Supporting state and central governments to move towards a quality education revolution
  • Serving as a resource centre for the country in the areas of education and development
  • Emerging as a centre of excellence in education policy and implementation

Reliance University on the anvil

So reports The Economic Times.

On November 17, when chairman Mukesh Ambani addresses Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting, he is likely to announce the group’s next foray: education.

India’s biggest business house is planning to launch a private university in line with the Ivy League institutions, says a company insider, though the contours are yet to be finalised.

....

According to an IDFC-SSKI report, Indians spend $50 billion annually on private education. The four segments of the education market — plus two, higher, vocational and supplemental — present a $80-billion opportunity by 2012. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16%, says a CLSA Pacific study.

“Mukesh envisions bringing global education to India. He will outline a road map for the business in the AGM speech,” says an official close to RIL who did not wish to be named. An RIL spokesman declined to comment.

....

Ditto Jaiprakash Industries, which is already running engineering institutes, while the London-listed mining giant Vedanta Group has announced a large university near Puri in Orissa. Those in the waitlist include Chennai-based Murugappa group and FMCG company Ruchi Soya.

This had to happen.

Kapil Sibal is away courting the foreign universities to get them to set shop in India. He should be courting Indian investors too and far more aggressively at that. An Indian university can get off the blocks much faster and we may know how to run it better. There's enough and more of money in India and the know how, experience and skills required to set up and run an university can easily be purchased acquired by an Indian entity. What we need most today is the vision, the largeness of outlook and the willingness to invest money. More importantly, to think big over the really long term, well beyond one's lifetime. While Mukesh Ambani and the others to come, have enough and more of the former, we will have to wait and see about the latter.

Listen to a description of Ezra Cornell's unreasonable vision to get a sense of how a self-made millionaire decided to invest his surplus into building the foundation for a university in the mid 19th century. His motto - "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any field of study" - speaks for his vision, and long-term outlook. The operative word is found. He probably knew his vision may not be achieved in his lifetime, but like all visionaries, he was envisioning the way things ought to be, rather than the way things could be in his day or lifetime. He didn't stop with the vision. He hired the right institution-builders and did enough and more to give it the momentum to keep going on and on. I'd say it's still work in progress.

Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata is another example of such a visionary closer to home.   

Mr. Narayana Murthy, Mr. Lakshmi Mittal, Mr. Ambani, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal and others - are you listening? Azim Premji is already off the blocks.

The Azim Premji University, a pioneering initiative in India

The Azim Premji Foundation (APF) is planning to set up the Azim Premji University (APU) a private self-financing university in Karnataka that would undertake teaching, training and R & D in fields like elementary and secondary education,education management and education policy. The APF will provide the statutory endowment fund of Rs. 25 crores. The University, while based in Karnataka will open branches elesewhere in the country. The Azim Premji University Bill is to be introduced in the Karnataka Assembly in the upcoming session, says the The Economic Times.

According to Business Line,

• The University will be self-financed, with no financial grant or assistance from the State Government
  
• Implying that reservations could apply to this university, a note issued during the meeting said that while it would be "open to all classes, castes and gender, the Government of Karnataka can make special provisions".
  
• The Board of Governors will have two Secretaries holding the charge of the education departments, while the rest will be from outside the Government. The board will appoint auditors, lay down policies, review decisions of the university, approve the budget and decide, if necessary, on the winding up of the university. The Government reserves the right to intervene in the event of mismanagement, mal-administration and indiscipline, the note, explaining some of the clauses in the proposed Bill, said.
  
• The Governor of the State will be a visitor of the university. He can seek any information and clarifications and confer degrees and the minister for higher education will be pro-visitor (pro-chancellor).

Business Standard interviewed Dileep Ranjekar, the CEO of the APF, who throws more light on their plans for the APU.

Where do you plan to have the varsity?
If Karnataka finally passes the Bill, and empowers us to start the private university, then the location will be Bangalore.

What was the inspiration behind this concept?
The biggest issue that has actually promoted us to think about the varsity is 'why is that there is no university that is focussed on elementary education in the country'. We observed that we don't have people with professional backgrounds in this country to address issues pertaining to the education sector. Hence, this university will be very similar to the national law school which was launched primarily to create professional lawyers in the country. The university will engage itself in educating professionals who, in turn, will be required for building the capabilities of teachers and managers as educators. Besides, we intend to train people who will make policy decisions based on their knowledge about education.

What courses you plan to offer?
Other than creating trained educational professionals, we plan to offer a post-graduate (MA) programme in education initially. We will also launch several short-term courses which will actually be targeted at in-service development needs of education managers, teacher educators and teachers. The second important activity is research, because research is lacking in education in India. The university will focus sharply on research on several issues to understand how things works; what causes better learning; how do we develop better people and what makes an effective teacher. There are hundreds of such issues. It will also have some experimental labs as part of the university. We also intend to collaborate with a number of states across the country to help them through education resource centres.

Since it will be a self-financing university, will students bear the cost?
Essentially it will be borne by the students. But where the students can't afford, we will have a scholarship programme.

How much funding have you received from Azim Premji for the Foundation so far?
We have earmarked close to Rs 650 crore so far, and this has been entirely funded by Azim Premji. We work with the government and we leverage the funds which we spend. The leverage is very important because the state has really the strength. Because anybody else spending money on the education is going to be very minuscule. The Foundation works with the government which is responsible for schooling. We work with close to about 20,000 schools across the country.

Will the UGC recognise the courses being offered by the university?
The university that comes into existence through a state legislation, will automatically be a recognised university. We don't have to approach the UGC for this.

The APF website lists K.S. Viswanathan as the person in charge of the APU project. Viswanathan had outlined APF's thoughts on improving education in India and its current activities in an interview last January.

VP: What exactly is the Azim Premji foundation doing now in the school scene in Karnataka?

K.S.V: The Azim Premji foundation is focused on Rural Government Schools in the states. We work along with the State Governments in executing some of their priorities. Karnataka has over 45,000 Elementary Schools and 8,000 Education functionaries. However, the learning levels in these schools are very low.

The key objective of the Azim Premji Foundation is to significantly contribute to the Universalisation of Elementary Education in India that facilitates a just, equitable and humane society. After 7 years of operations driving this goal, the foundation has now identified Teacher, Education functionaries as well as Examination reforms as the three pillars as the major programs to pursue.

Teachers tend to teach what gets tested. Teachers are the key transformational agents in the class rooms. Education Functionaries play an important role on how a teacher is actually engaged in a class room. What is needed is a common shared Vision amongst the various stake holders in the Education System in the country. With these goals, the Azim Premji Foundation has been working with the State Government on various initiatives that will supplement their efforts in improving the quality of education in the state.

Our programs in the Karnataka Government is built around Examination reforms, Class room teaching learning process, Teacher training and preparation and Academic support for schools.

We started with Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) in North East Karnataka (the most backward economically and academically) in 2001. This was followed with the Learning Guarantee Program ( LGP) where we ran programs to assess the learning's in the class measured in terms of Competencies acquired in Maths, Language and Science in Class 2 and Class 4. Based on our findings, the Karnataka Government set up a special Organization, Karnataka State Quality Assessment Organization ( KSQAO). KSQAO is now running the LGP program across the state to assess the competency acquired in the Elementary Schools in the state. Currently, we are implementing Child Friendly School initiatives in 330 schools in Surpur block of Yadgir district in NE Karnataka to assess the impact of Community participation in School management, Teacher support system as well as LGP.

We are also running a Management Development Program for 8000 Education functionaries in the state.

VP: What does the Foundation do in other states?

K.S.V: We have extended the concept of Learning Guarantee Program in the few districts in the states of MP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttaranchal. We are also developing Child centric, self paced, interactive learning system using educational software in 18 languages including 4 tribal languages, to facilitate the unleashing of creativity in children.

In addition, in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Pondicherry, we are working with the Governments to assess the impact of Technology led initiatives in Class room learning along with, as well as providing Academic and Pedagogic support to Schools . Our programs cover 13 States, 16000 schools and 2.5 Mn children.

VP: India currently has about 35 Million children "out of school" and about 157 Million children in the school. How are you trying to bring a balance between quantity and quality?

K.S.V: We have a unique challenge here. We need more schools to cover larger number of children in the country and at the same time, the quality of education in terms of school infrastructure, class room process as well as Teacher support system. Post the launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Universalisation of Elementary Education) program, there has been an improvement in the access to the school for the children in the rural areas. Today, close to 90 % of the children have an access to an elementary school within a distance of 3 Kms from their homes. However, in the process the quality of education has taken a beating. Other programs like Mid day meals, free text books etc have further enhanced the gross enrolment ratio in the schools to around 90%. This is good and welcome news with respect to quantity.

However, quality of education has emerged as the biggest concern in the elementary school system in the country. We have around 200 mn children in the age group of 6-14; out of who only 52% of them reach Class 8 and only 31% reach class 10.Even amongst these children, only 1/3rd of the children are able to read and write their names in their native language.

One of the main reasons for the higher drop out rate as well as low learning in the elementary schools, is the quality of class room process, Curriculum design and Teacher support system in addition to other socio economic factors. The good news is there is an increased awareness on these issues and there is a good focus from all concerned including NGO's like Azim Premji Foundation, Ministry of Education in the Central and in the state government to address these issues . It is a slow but a definite process towards improving the quality of education in the elementary schools.

VP: So what, according to you, are the key needs of elementary education today?

K.S.V: Elementary Education today requires a good Academic Support System, more accountability to all stake holders including the Community for learning outcomes as well as a common shared strategic perspective amongst all stake holders in the system. Making the Teacher's job more exciting, more important as well bringing more recognition to the teachers and the Education functionaries can change the way we look at the Elementary education system in the country.

We need more Action research in the challenges of the Elementary Education. There is also a need to revamp the teacher Education system in the country focused on Elementary schools.

The APF's strategy of addressing the challenge of universalisation of elemenatary education by improving the quality of teachers and the quality of the classroom learning process is an excellent one. Their idea of walking the talk and investing to set up an university focussed on teaching and education management is a welcome step. What is more, the APF's strategy of working closely with the Government, indeed partnering with them, to leverage their strengths and complement them with the APF's own strengths is very well conceived. As Dileep Ranjekar points out, the challenge of educating all our children is a challenge of scale. No private player can match the scale of the Government's efforts. The Government has a crucial role to play. Ranjekar's choice of the word "leverage" is apt in this context. The APF's efforts (backed by its Rs. 650 crore investment - no mean sum in itself, albeit just a drop compared to the Government spending on education) can provide a multiplier effect to the Government's own investments and lead to huge improvements in teaching and learning in Government schools. By working closely with the Government (the Policy Planning Unit in the Dept. of Education in Karnataka is staffed by Government officials as well as staff from the Azim Premji Foundation) and offering the Government substantial control over the running of the proposed APU, the APF is also pre-empting the possibility of any standoffs with future Governments, run by other administrations.

The APF's initiatives in area of Education Management are described on their web site. One aspect of Education Management that doesn't find a mention in their list, but deserves attention is the economics of running schools. The challenge will be to keep fees as low as possible and affordable to the masses, yet find the ways and means to delivery a high quality education in a self-sustaining manner year on year. I hope the APF is working on this too.

The APU is likely to be the first of many more such universities likely to be set up in the coming years. Just as Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata provided the seed investment to set up the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (still knowns as Tata Institute to Bangloreans) a 100 years ago, I can see a time not before long when we will have more such universities spawned by India's successful and farsighted business leaders. Imagine an Infosys University, a Mittal University, a Mahindra University, a Tata University, a Birla University ,a Reliance University, a HCL University, a TVS University, a Bharti University, a Bajaj University, an ITC University, an ICICI University, a HDFC University, and many more dotting the country over the next decade. Just the thought of the impact they could have, with each of them specialising in different areas, sends a frisson of excitement down the spine. It took almost 13 years, from 1896 when Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata wrote to Lord Reay about the creation of a national university, to 1909 when the Government of India issued the vesting order for the institute, for the Indian Institute of Science to see the light of day. Azim Premji has shown that it will take much less time today from idea to reality.

Liberalise education - do away with the Education Raj

In an article in the Economic Times (April 18, 2005), Prof. Pankaj Jalote of IIT Kanpur writing in the context of the recent Supreme Court decision derecognising over 100 private universities in Chattisgarh, argues for liberalising higher education and doing away with the Education Raj.  Here is what he said.

On the face of it, this concern for the quality of education is well place. But experience has shown that quality can't be ensured by legislation or the government deciding who can produce quality goods or services. If that were true, we would have had high quality in the License Raj.

Quality comes, first and foremost , by the consumer of the good or service demanding it. And the consumer can demand when there are choices available to him, so that he can punish poor quality by switching. Hence, multiplicity of sources and abundance of supply are essential to ensure quality. To allow the consumer to take an informed decision, there has to be information available about the good or service. With information and competition, the consumer is smart enough to make good choices. This is particularly true in the area of higher education, where, by definition, the consumer is already quite well educated and ambitious.

The current set-up aims to control education quality by giving out licenses to those the government sees fit to provide education. When there are licenses, distrotions naturally come. Even the rules for university affiliation are like licenses, and are often cornered by people with political connections. However, there are no mechanisms to ensure that information on universities or colleges is available to students and their parents. So, we have a reversal from the desired situation - in supply, where the government shouldn't play an active role, it is very active; and in ensuring that sufficient information is available, where perhaps only the government can play the necessary role, it is doing little.

A parallel can be drawn with the industrial sector. Earlier, we had the license system where who can produce wha,t and how much, was decided by the government. That situation as we know, was neither conducive to quality nor efficiency. Later the rules were liberalised and industry was freed. The results are here for all to see. Now, pretty much anyone can start a public company, but the company has to disclose relevant data to the shareholders, regulatory bodies and stock exchanges.

We need a similar liberalisation in education and the field of higher education should be thrown open. To ensure that only serious long-term players enter, a minimum investment (say Rs. 50 crores) should be stipulated before anyone can start a university. However, once in existence, the university must be obligated to file with a regulatory body (or equivalent) all the information needed by students and their parents, who are the main purchasers of the service. This will include information about the fees and other finances, about infrastructure and investments in it, faculty and their qualifications, on  and off-campus placements and the like. Basically all the information needed to make an informed decision.

The regulator can then ensure that the information is available publicly. By making the information public, students themselves will become the watchdog to ensure that the information is correct. Just ensuring that this information is available publicly will be a great service to young education seekers, who otherwise rely on gossip and touts to inform them about the quality of universities and colleges.

One should not confuse regulation with accreditation. The regulation structure is being suggested to ensure that information is provided by institutes and that the rules of the game are followed. Accreditation on the other hand, is a "seal of approval". It is like the ISI stamp provided to a product, or the ISO certification given to a plant. So a university can be UGC or AICTE accredited or not - but the quality of education they provide is not dependent on that accreditation. Just like the ISI mark is not necessary to produce a good, accreditation is desirable, but should remain voluntary.

I completely agree with Prof. Jalote on the need to liberalise higher education. I had argued in an earlier post that the government should only look to be the regulator (like TRAI or IRDA) and set the broad guidelines for all educational institutions to follow and then let independent rating agencies (like CRISIL, ICRA and CARE) evaluate each educational institution and publicly announce its ratings of all institutions to enable students to make informed decisions in their choice of educational institutions.

Prof. Jalote's idea of making it mandatory for all institutions to file periodic reports with regulator is an excellent one. These reports along with the ratings by the agencies will help students to separate the wheat from the chaff and the chaff will then slowly begin to disappear all by itself.

Rating of educational institutions in India by independent agencies - a working model to follow

There are three functions that the University Grants Commission is currently performing. The UGC acts as a

1. Regulator: It specifies the minimum quality and infrastructure norms that must be adhered to by all public universities (and now private ones too after the recent Supreme Court judgement), in the area of non-professional education.
2. Inspection/Rating Agency: It (through the The National Assessment and Accreditation Council, which has been established by the UGC) periodically inspects the universities for their compliance with the regulations/norms and rates them with a rating (on a scale of A++ to C) that certifies if the university is up to the "mark" or not.
3. Disburser of Government Grants: It disburses government grants to universities by inviting proposals for grants from different universities.

Since it is one and the same organisation, the UGC, that currently performs all these three functions, there is a lot of scope for inefficiency and misuse of its discretionary powers. The power to withhold certification and/or government grants can be misused.

Here is a proposal to get around that.

The University Grants Commission, as its very name spells out, should focus solely on disbursing grants to universities.

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) should be delinked from the UGC's control (it can function directly under the Ministry of Human Resource Development) and made the Regulator (of all non-professional education). As a Regulator, it shall specify the norms that universities need to follow and shall also accredit/certify the universities based on the ratings of the universities provided by the Rating Agency. Regulations for institutions offering professional  courses are already being specified by various other organisations like the All India Council of Technical Education (Engineering), Medical Council of India (Medicine), Pharmacy Council of India (Pharmacy), Bar Council of India (Law) etc..

The functions of rating and certifiying the universities could be done by independent Educational Rating Agencies that I had described in an earlier post.

If one looks at the  corporate/financial sector, the Registrar of Companies regulates all companies, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulates all  publicly listed companies and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulates Banks and Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs). Since the financial sector deals with funds raised from the public, regulatory compliance is far more important and non-compliance is prosecutable. 

But neither SEBI nor RBI nor any other government agency provides any kind of rating or report on the business oulook, profits and losses or the creditworthiness of corporates, banks and NBFCs , on an ongoing basis. That job is left to independent rating agencies like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE who compete with each other for the custom of the corporates, banks and NBFCs, to rate them.

Just as the financial rating agencies seem to be doing a reasonable job in the financial sector and getting better over time in helping the public make informed choices on investing their money in corporates, banks or NBFCs, educational rating agencies can do the same for the education sector. An Educational Rating Agency can periodically review each institution's regulatory compliance across a range of parameters and publish the rating in the media to enable students to make informed choices.

Indeed, such a start has already been made in the education sector in India! The Directorate General of Shipping in a circular on Benchmarking/Grading of Maritime Training Institutes issued in 2004 details its initiative, why such an initiative is required and how it will work in the context of maritime training institutes. The full text of that circular is reproduced below.

Maritime training institutes in India were pre-dominantly in the Govt. sector prior to the year 1996. During 1996, maritime training was opened for private sector participation. Since then, more than 130 institutes are engaged in conducting various types of pre-sea and post sea courses.

At present, except for inspections by the Academic Councils, there is no other system of accurate evaluation of training institute. It has also been observed that there has been wide variation in the quality of training being imparted by maritime training institutes. It is therefore desirable that some rating of institutes be done by an independent and reputed body in order to maintain consistency of high quality of maritime training and education. This will not only lead to healthy competition among the institutes but will also improve their status and thereby increase the marketability of Indian seafarers from such rated institutes. In the increasingly competitive manpower supply scenario in International Shipping , excellence in maritime education and training is a necessity.

The Directorate is of the opinion that it is necessary that a system should be evolved where a common platform of benchmarking of various maritime training institutions across the country is in place. A publicly available and highly credible bench-marking exercise acts as a powerful tool for non-intrusive regulation and quality enhancement.

The Director General of Shipping has consulted various stake holders about this aspect. Three premier rating agencies viz. CRISIL, ICRA, & CARE were identified and they were advised to study and formulate the detailed scheme for benchmarking of training institutes. A series of presentations and discussions were held with these three rating agencies. While formulating their schemes, the rating agencies had interaction with some of the maritime training institutes and have also done a trial benchmarking of at least one training institute each. Their reports have been discussed in detail in Directorate and with the agencies. Based on these discussions and after fine tuning the proposals thus received, the Director General has approved the three rating agencies viz. CRISL, ICRA and CARE as approved agencies to undertake the benchmarking / grading/ rating of various maritime training institutes.

We are aware that being a new concept, various stakeholders specially the training institutes will have some curiosity and clarifications to seek. Basic issues along with their explanations are as under:

1. NEED FOR GRADING TRAINING INSTITUTES? A grading is an opinion expressed by an independent agency on the extent to which individual course offerings in maritime education meet the desired course objectives as stated by the Directorate General of Shipping in India (DGS) from time to time in its capacity as the regulator of maritime education. This opinion would be based on an assessment by the agency of the various aspects of the course offered, such as faculty, facilities, infrastructure etc. to the extent applicable for the course being assessed.


2. GRADING OF INSTITUTES AND COURSES: The grading would be directly applicable to the courses offered by any training institute. This grading for individual courses would be used as an input to arrive at a grading for the institute. It may be pointed out here that the grade assigned to individual courses offered by the same institute may differ substantially from one course to another.


3. AGENCY FOR GRADING: DGS has put in place a panel of three agencies CRISIL Ltd. (CRISIL), ICRA Ltd. (ICRA) and Credit Analysis & Research Ltd. (CARE) for this grading exercise. These entities have a long track record in the area of credit rating in India and have also been active in grading exercises for other service providers like hospitals, schools etc.. Institutes can approach any of these agencies for grading.


4. BENEFITS OF GRADING IN MARITIME EDUCATION? Though the grading exercise has the largest benefits for students and the institutes, it also has potential benefits for employers and even DGS. These benefits are briefly laid out below :

   FOR STUDENTS : A credible grading of courses would significantly aid students in their decision of choosing an institute for a particular course. This is because the grading would seek to assess the relative quality of similar course offered across various institutes. Moreover, to the extent that the course offered would be benchmarked against international best practices as well, students would get a fair idea about the course quality against global standards too. This would be useful for both pre-sea students, who might have inadequate knowledge of the industry, as well as seafarers preparing for post-sea certifications.

   FOR INSTITUTES : The grading would be a potent symbol of differentiation for institutes that conduct particular courses better than others. This would help these institutes in attracting more students from both within and outside India. The grading exercise would also involve extensive interaction of the grading agencies with the institutes and sharing of an assessment report with the institute which would provide a rationale for the grade assigned and feedback regarding areas of improvement.

   FOR EMPLOYERS : The grading of course offered would provide employers with a means of assessing relative quality of education imparted and refine expectations with regard to on-the-job performance of recruits. This would be particularly useful in courses which do not involve any external examinations.

   FOR DGS : The grading would be an additional input for DGS in regulating maritime education in the country. Moreover, it has the potential to serve as an effective tool for non-intrusive regulation of more than 100 institutes and encouraging a permeation of best practices across institutes. Further, if a system of quality education can be put in place, India could emerge as a global centre for excellence and cost-effective maritime education & training.

   
   
5. HOW WOULD THE GRADING BE INDICATED?: It is intended that course offerings would be graded on a five point scale from grade 1 (indicating high quality) to grade 5 (indicating below grading standards). The grade would be prefixed by the name of the agency responsible for assigning that grade e.g. a CRISIL assigned grade would read as CRISIL Grade 1, an ICRA assigned grade would read as ICRA Grade 1 and a CARE assigned grade would read as CARE Grade 1. Grade 1 will effectively mean outstanding, Grade 2 - Very Good, Grade 3 - Good, Grade 4 - Satisfactory and Grade 5 - Below Grading Standards.


6. FOR HOW LONG WOULD AN ASSIGNED GRADE BE VALID?: The grading agencies would review all assigned grades periodically so as to ensure that the grade remains current at all points in time. However, the grading for the institute will be valid for a period of 2 years from the grade assigned . The rating agencies will however collect information and make periodical verification after completion of one year in order to have continuation of the grading.


7. WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS CONSIDERED IN THE GRADING EXERCISE?: The broad framework for grading has been devised jointly by the three grading agencies under the guidance of DGS. The critical parameters include (to the extent applicable for various courses) the quality of faculty, quality of infrastructure, & training facilities the quality of the teaching process, performance of graduating students, the management quality and track record, placement of passing out students and an assessment of the operational / financial sustainability of the institute. DGS has prepared an inventory of critical factors to be assessed as a guide to the grading agencies. Copy enclosed as Annex-A. However, the agencies are free to devise their methods of assessment of these factors as well as expand the list of assessed factors. Therefore, the details of assessment by each agency may differ in their approach but the standards of assessment, breadth of factors assessed and the weightages assigned to individual factors in the overall assessment shall be similar. However, to ensure that the end result of the different agencies can be compared when they are grading similar Institute, the rating agencies are given various heads for grading with detailed parameters for grading.


8. HOW DOES AN INSTITUTE GET ITS COURSE OFFERINGS GRADED?: The institute has to first contact one of the grading agencies and mandate it for the grading exercise. The agency would then follow the process outlined below.
   • Seek information required for the grading from the institute concerned.
   • On receipt of required information, have a preliminary discussion with the institute's management.
   • Have discussions with institute director and faculty at the institute location
   • Visit the institute and study the facilities and the actual education and training procedures.
   • Discuss details of the education process with the faculty / laboratory training facilities/infrastructure/ supervisors / students/trainers.
   • Final analysis based on the above discussion, documents and other information provided by the institute.
   • Prepare an analytical assessment report
   • Present the analysis to a committee comprising senior executives of the concerned grading agency. This committee would discuss all relevant issues and assign a grade
   • Communicate the grade to the institute along with an assessment report outlining the rationale for the grade assigned.
   
   The address of these three grading agencies are as under:

   a. Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited, CRISIL House, 121-122 Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri (East) Mumbai - 400 093 - Mr. S. Venkataraman, Tel. No. 56913038 / 5691 3001.
   
   b. Credit Analysis & Research Ltd., Kalpataru Point, 2nd Floor, Kamani Marg, Sion (East) Mumbai - 400 022-Mr. Shri P.N. Sateesh Kumar, Head-Advisory Services Division Tel.No. 56602871 -75
   
   c. ICRA Ltd., Kailash Building, 4th floor, 28, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi - 110001-Mr. Amul Gogna, Executive Director, Tel.No. 011-23357940-50/ 011-23357014 / 011-23355293

 

9. WHAT CAN THE INSTITUTE DO IF IT IS NOT SATISFIED WITH THE GRADE ASSIGNED BY THE GRADING AGENCY?: The grading agency would provide the institute with a written report outlining the logic for the assigned grade. The institute can contest the analytical conclusions made by the agency in the rationale. In case some material information is not included in this analysis, the agency would repeat the grading process. In case the institute is still not satisfied, it can go to another agency for a second opinion.


10. DOES THE INSTITUTE HAVE TO ACCEPT THE GRADE ASSIGNED?: The institute can choose not to accept the grade. In this case, the grade would be kept confidential. However, once the grade assigned is accepted, it would be disseminated to the public. Also, the institute would be obliged to facilitate the process of review of the grade from time to time for as long as is indicated in question six. Further, any revision of an outstanding grade in this period would also need to be publicly disclosed.


11. WHO PAYS FOR THE EXERCISE? WHAT WOULD THE FEE BE?: The institute would pay for the exercise. The fee charged by different agencies would depend on their respective processes of assessment. The Directorate is not deciding on the fee to be charged from the institute; similarly, the Directorate will not interfere in the fee settled by the Agency and the institute.


12. IF THE INSTITUTE PAYS FOR THE GRADING, HOW DOES THE RATING AGENCY MAINTAIN ITS INDEPENDENCE?: While the institute-fee model naturally creates a potential conflict of interest (that could lead to higher than warranted grading), experience in other areas where grading has been used indicates that the existence of this conflict does not by itself lead to lax grading standards. This is because reputation of the grading agency would play a crucial role in its perceived value. · Although the institute would pay for the grading, the student would use it. Like any other product or service, the 'value' of the grade would depend entirely on the perceptions of the user - in this case, the student and/or the sponsor employer. Consequently, users would 'buy' only those gradings that they find 'valuable'. · Student perceptions, in turn, would be based on the credibility of the past gradings assigned by each rating agency. Lax standards by any rating agency would lead to a loss of credibility and an erosion of the 'value' associated with the gradings assigned by that agency. This would reduce demand for gradings from that agency, consequently affecting its revenues. Thus, even though the institute would pay for the grading exercise, grading agencies would have a strong incentive to maintain their independence due to the reputation risk arising out of lax standards.


13. DOES DGS HAVE A ROLE IN THE GRADING EXERCISE?: No. The DGS does not play any role in the assessment made by the rating agency. The grading is intended to be an independent and unbiased opinion of that agency. The role of DGS is that of a facilitator of the grading process whenever required.


14. SAMPLE SIZE ADMINISTRATING THE GRADINGS: Rating agency shall take note of adequacy of sample size in order to assess the Maritime Training Institute to have holistic and complete picture.


15. BENCHMARKING PROCESS TO BE PART OF QUALITY MANUAL SYSTEM: The institute which opt for grading/benchmarking, should include this aspect in their QMS so that this can be reviewed during their internal /external audits


16. WHETHER THE GRADING IS MANDATORY: The Directorate is aware that the concept of benchmarking is new and should be introduced gradually. With this intention this has been discussed on various occasions for more than a year. To begin with the grading is not being made mandatory and it is expected that the institute shall come forward for benefit of all stakeholders for grading of their institutes. However, for approval of new institute / new course / expansion of capacity due additional weightage shall be given if the institute is graded. After review of the progress and the feedback received the Directorate shall consider whether to make benchmarking mandatory for the training institute at an appropriate stage.


17. DISPUTE: The dispute between the rating agency and the institute will have to be settled between themselves only and Directorate will not involve itself in the process. All institutes are requested to get themselves graded and the grading may be displayed in their advertisement.

An Educational Rating Agency for both non-professional and professional education would help the students and the employers in making informed choices about the quality of education in each institution, akin to what is currently the case for maritime training institutes. Any interested private party should be allowed to set up an independent Rating Agency. As the Directorate General of Shipping argues, though the Rating Agencies will be paid by the insitutions it rates, they will be able to function independently and rate institutions objectively since each Agency will value its reputation and credibility.

It should be made mandatory for all universities and educational institutions (both public and private) to get themselves rated by an Educational Rating Agency. This will ensure that all fly-by-night operators like those who exploited the Chattisgarh legislation will have no chance to cheat the public and this will also put pressure on the public universities and force them to work towards all-round improvement. It will generate healthy competition amongst all the universities. Most importantly it will eliminate the Regulator's control on the rating process.

The is a sizeable business opportunity for Educational Rating Agencies, given the size of the higher education sector and its rapid growth. If the concept of ratings is extended to the the school education sector too, that will be a huge market for the Rating Agencies. So enough players will be interested in this space and over time a handful of strong rating agencies are likely to emerge, like CRISIL, ICRA and CARE have done in the financial sector. Indeed CRISIL, ICRA and CARE have already begun to expand into the education sector by working with the Directorate General of Shipping.

An Education BPO model

I recently came across Meta-i Technologies, a start-up company incubated by IIM Bangalore, that has set itself up as an education BPO.  The home page on their web site seems to be a dead end (as of today) and I'm not sure if the company is still active. But their education BPO model is an interesting one in the context of my earlier post on leasing educational infrastructure. According to Meta-i's web site,

META-i TECHNOLOGIES is a Business Process Outsourcing, Educational Support Services Company professionally managed and incubated at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B), providing for strategic, long term and value-added back office support as well as process and technology services to your school, college or University.

Under our BPO services, we provide for long term, strategic process, workflow and technology outsourcing options, so that you could focus on what your institution was founded for.

"Providing value education", without having to worry too much into daily operational details. Every single process adopted by META-i at your institute can be validated by you, and our service and quality levels are defined together with you. So you can be rest assured that processes are being undertaken exactly the way you like them to be, even when you are on your vacation! Meta-i shares with you the best practices followed elsewhere by other institutions that may help you to undertake some of your processes in a much more efficient manner.

So what do they actually do? (I wonder why company web sites tend to use jargon and verbose ununderstandable language to explain what they do). An article in the Times of India  (March 03, 2003) explains.

Kumaran School, IIM Bangalore, Institute of Biotechnology and Applied Bioinformatics (IBAB) and Institute of Business Management & Technology (IBM&T) are outsourcing non-core operations like selection, admission and placement of students to third-party companies.

The institutes normally farm out the work in the form of projects and pay for each on its completion. Besides ensuring faster delivery, outsourcing is 15 percent cheaper than in-house work. Kumaran School, with a studentstrength of 1,200, is collaborating with Meta-i Technologies, a BPO outfit spawned by IIM, Bangalore, for deploying a school management system.

It has captured historical data of the school (data relating to student almuni and their parents, selection and admission details), besides updating information on a regular basis.

Says Deepa Sridhar, Director of Kumaran School: "The BPO provider is managing the system by putting a help desk in place and it gives rolebased access to students, parents, administrative staff and teachers."

Centre for Public Policy at IIMB, which imparts policy-related training to mid-level IAS officers, has engaged Meta-i to build a Web information system that updates data five times a day in addition to replying to queries from the candidates.

Says Prof. Nagadevra, faculty member at CPP, "With third party service provider in place,we can focus on core job of providing quality education and research, while other activities such as handling trainees’ queries get outsourced."

According to Mani Kamatchi, MD of Meta-i: "Treating students, parents and teachers as customers has become crucial for educational institutes for which they are increasingly outsourcing this activity to BPO companies."

BPO opportunity in the educational sector is huge, with around 237 state-recognised universities, 46 deemed universities, 11,100 aided colleges and 10,000 autonomous colleges.

If you tot up the number of educational institutions around the world, the education BPO opportunity that Meta-i is talking abut is indeed a sizeable one.

According to another page on Meta-i's website,

www.easyadmissions.com is India's first online college application platform, which is designed to provide a simple web based information support systems to academic institutions, enabling students to apply to hundreds of colleges online. Easyadmissions.com allows students to have a single point of access to information regarding institutions and their offerings, facilitating students to access information and facilitating online application systems. The system also caters to the varied administrative needs of principals and admissions-counsellors of colleges across India, enabling them to effectively manage their application process.

but the easyadmissions.com website doesn't work currently. So I'm not sure if Meta-i is still an active company, given that the home page of their web site doesn't lead anywhere either.

Pacsoft, a Bangalore-based company has taken another approach to helping schools manage their administration - they've developed Lyceum, an educational ERP package for schools. Express Computer  (December 27, 2004) has more about Lyceum.

Pac Soft Solutions (Pacsoft) is on a drive to popularise its flagship educational ERP product, Lyceum, with Indian schools and colleges. The company has already signed up 850 educational institutions, including the   likes of Bishop Cotton School for Boys (Bangalore), Frank Anthony Public School (Kolkata and Bangalore), Pathways School (Delhi) and the SS Singhania School   (Mumbai). It now plans to target 10,000 educational institutions across the country over the next three years with Lyceum.

Lyceum is a connected learning solution that lets Indian educational institutions offer anytime, anyplace access to students, educators and parents. The per user licence cost ranges from Rs 25,000 to Rs 8 lakh. Lyceum gives a platform to students and teachers to interact with each other. Parents are able to log in and check on their child’s performance, marks, fees, attendance and lessons completed for the day. They can have a virtual Parents Teachers Association meeting almost on a daily basis.  The software also automates essential but time-consuming administrative tasks. The various modules of Lyceum include fee management, payroll management, attendance management, and marks and student monitoring. The integration of devices such as smart cards and handheld devices ensures that Lyceum  eliminates most of the administrative headaches of school managements. Lyceum’s remote management capability helps educational authorities track the real-time progress of their institutions on multiple fronts. The e-governance module helps promote a seamless and transparent administrative environment for the educational sector.

The average deal size for an educational ERP deployment is roughly Rs 3.5 lakh. Ever since Pacsoft first shipped Lyceum in 1991, it has become a buzzword among tech-savvy educational institutions. The Lyceum product family has three derivatives: the school ERP system, mylyceum.net (which is the connected learning module), and the e-governance module (targeted at education boards and education departments in the government ). mylyceum.net is an online portal that has information pertaining to a student and his or her academic growth curve. An institution has to subscribe to the portal that is hosted at Pacsoft’s site in Bangalore. The e-governance module helps education boards and government departments to share information.

However, selling ERP to schools has not been easy. As Sait explains, “Since the concept is quite revolutionary, it takes us time to convince schools that they should shift to an  educational ERP system. As Lyceum’s implementation   means a complete transformation in an educational department’s processes, the sales cycle can vary from 15-90 days.” Some educational institutions find it quite challenging to transfer their existing manual records to the new system, which brings complete transparency to processes. Pacsoft has also observed   that educational institutions face regular budget constraints as they operate on yearly cycles; products therefore have to be pitched during the beginning of an academic session to gain management approval.

The consortium that Pacsoft has formed will train teachers and students to use the software, and help them aid their educational institutions. The tie-up’s   goal is to consolidate the educational market by helping institutions acquire relevant technologies at a low cost.

Currently, Lyceum is available only on the .NET platform. Before migrating to .NET, Lyceum was also available on DOS and NetWare. Explains Sait, “We   were looking for an integrated approach using the .NET platform as it helps in seamless integration and sharing of information.”