"Starting nearly 50 DTH channels for Higher Education in the Country within the XI Plan period has occupied a high place under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) at present. MHRD’s request to ISRO for providing 2 transponders has been noted by ISRO and sent to the INSAT Coordination Committee. NMEICT has an allocation of Rs. 120 crore for the DTH channels to begin with." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 3397 Answered on 14.12.2011
Since the Minister's reply says it will be done within the XI plan period, the channels should be in place before the end of 2012. Sounds unrealistic. The NMEICT, in its mission document, had listed as one of its 48 ambitious objectives,
34. Content delivery through EduSAT and narrowcasting of TV signals. Providing 1000 DTH (Direct to Home) channels on 40 transponders [to be availed through the Department. of Space] so that a separate DTH channel is available for every subject for every class in various languages to the extent possible.
Data on enrollment and expenditure in National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS): Enrollments are much lower than I thought. NIOS also enrolls students in 15 overseas centres of NIOS in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Nepal. Source: Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 381 Answered on 21.12.2011
Year
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12 (Upto Oct 31st)
Total Learners Enrolled
4,38,906
4,93,091
3,66,539
Learners from minority communities enrolled
88,983
92,185
62,696
% of minority community enrolled
20%
19%
17%
Rs. in Crores
Rs. in Crores
Rs. in Crores
Budget: Plan Funds from Govt of India
15.00
11.25
15.00
Budget: Income Generated by NIOS
89.35
99.07
40.83
Expenditure: Plan Funds from Govt of India
11.61
8.19
6.02
Expenditure: Income Generated by NIOS
69.75
71.98
37.15
A recent report on the Development of the State Open Schools in India by T. Rajagopalan, erstwhile Education Correspondent of The Hindu, concludes that it is well nigh impossible to achieve the goal of Education for All through the formal education system alone or even the National Open School system alone. Rajagopalan says although the State Open Schools have an important role to play, the policy establishment pays only lip service to expanding educational opportunities and seems least interested in consolidating and strengthening the open school system in the states.
New Education Commission: "In pursuance of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 15th August, 2011, Government has decided to set up an Education Commission to make recommendations for improvement at all levels of education. The Constitution and Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission is being finalized by the Government after wide consultations." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4492 Answered on 21.12.2011. Other than the news reports based on the PM's August 15th speech, I could find no other mention on any of the Government-related web sites on the setting up of the new education commission, but apparently they're working on it.
"The average annual expenditure per student in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is Rs. 2.82 lakhs, the tuition fees uniformly payable for under-graduate programmes by each student is Rs. 25,000 per semester.
The Council of the IITs, in its 43rd meeting held on 14th September, 2011, accepted ‘in principle’ the report of Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee on the road map for enhancing the autonomy of the IIT system which has recommended, inter-alia, that while the students' scholarships, capital and infrastructure expenditure may continue to be met fully by the Government, the IITs may meet, on their own, the operational expenditure. Thus, while the capital costs may be taken care of by the Government, the student of under graduate programme may pay enhanced fee towards the recurring cost of education on getting employed, which is justifiable on the grounds of earning potential of an IIT graduate. An empowered Task Force has been constituted for implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. " Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4520 Answered on 21.12.2011
It is unclear from the statement if the annual expenditure of Rs. 2.82 lakhs includes both capital and operational expense per student or only operational expense per student. If the latter, the gulf between annual expenditure per student (Rs. 2.82 lakhs) and tuition fees paid per year (Rs. 50,000) by each student is substantial. If annual operational costs have to be recovered by the IITs through fees alone, the fees will have to rise by over 500%!
"Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of students enrolled in higher education as a percentage of the population in the age group of 18-23 years in 2009-10(Provisional) is 15.0 (All Categories), 11.1 (Scheduled Caste) and 10.3 (Scheduled Tribe)." Source: Lok Sabha UnStarred Question No. 4593 Answered on 21.12.2011
Statewise 2009-10 Provisional GER data was also provided - Delhi (47.9) is the highest followed by Uttarakhand (36.0), Puducherry (29.1), Goa (28.3), Chandigarh (28.0). The GER for larger states Himchal Pradesh (23.9), Maharashtra (21.4), Chattisgarh (20.0), Tamil Nadu (19.0), Karnataka (18.1), Andhra Pradesh (16.9), Madhya Pradesh (14.9), West Bengal (11.9) and Uttar Pradesh (10.9) is lower.
The Tamil Nadu Government is making good on Chief Minister Jayalilatha's poll promise of giving away free laptops to all students of government-aided higher secondary schools (classes XI and XII), arts and science colleges, engineering colleges and polytechnic colleges in Tamil Nadu.
912,000 laptops are to be given away this year in the first phase of the scheme with a total of 6.8 million laptops to be given away over the next five years. Over 10% of Tamil Nadu's population will be toting laptops in five years time. The families of students getting a laptop will also have access to a laptop, especially the younger siblings in these families. The total five year budget for the scheme is estimated to be Rs. 10,200 crores (about 100 billion rupees or US$2 billion). More information on the scheme is available in the detailed tender document.
A few observations and implications of this scheme:
This is probably one of the the largest unconventional ICT interventions in schooling in India or possibly even the whole world.
The traditional approach would have been to give the laptops to schools and let the children use the laptops while in school. In the Indian context, with tightly controlled access to anything in school, that would have probably limited the use of the laptops by the students to a computer period under the watchful eye of a teacher or a computer operator. The Tamil Nadu Government's scheme takes a diametrically opposite approach and puts the laptops directly in the hands of the end users, with no role for the school or the teacher.
This scheme has political rather than educational origins. Jayalalitha probably got this idea from one of her political advisers and not from an educationist or anyone with an educational background who believes that laptops will make difference to learning. The Government has gone ahead without worrying about how the students ought to, or will, use the laptops. They have left it to the children to figure it out. But going by Sugata Mitra's experiments in Kalikuppam (Puducherry) and elsewhere, it is quite likely that give the laptops, the students will figure out ways of using them in various ways.
The scheme has been pitched by the politicians as a great leveller for those children who could not have afforded to buy laptops themselves.
It would have been ideal if educational video content in Tamil (for. e.g. the entire set of Khan Academy videos dubbed in Tamil) had been bundled on the hard disks of each free laptop being given away to all the students.
Although laptops are being provided free to the students, Internet access is not being provided free. Students will need to figure out ways of accessing the Internet themselves. But with the spread of Internet browsing centres across Tamil Nadu, the easy availability of dongles like Tata Photon or Reliance NetConnect and Internet services being provided even in rural areas by BSNL and other ISPs, I am sure the students will figure out ways of getting on to the Internet. This is also a huge opportunity for the ISPs to make a huge Internet push across Tamil Nadu, since the availability of devices is no more a constraint.
The suppliers of the laptops are required to provide a 12 month warranty. They are required to establish service centres in over 100 towns across Tamil Nadu and a call centre facility to take service calls. The service network will probably remain in place beyond the 12 month warranty period, with more laptops being sold to the public in these small towns given the availability of the service network locally.
The original spec for the laptops to be given away free was an Intel Pentium Dual Core P6200 equivalent with 2.1 GHz clock speed, 2GB RAM, 320GB hard disk and a 14" screen, an inbuilt camera, 2 hour battery backup, along with a customised backpack. The Government had expected to be able to source these laptops for not more than Rs. 10,000 per piece, but the lowest bid for the laptops was not less than Rs. 18,000 per piece. So the spec was then downgraded to a 160GB hard disk and a one year warranty, leaving the processor and RAM unchanged.
The laptops will come with Windows Starter Edition and anti-virus software pre-installed. Apart from that the only additional software to be pre-loaded is Open Office, Tamil unicode fonts, Tamil glossary, Tirukkural software, and the State Board's syllabi of class XI and XII. Initially, the Government had stated that Linux would not be installed, but later on, the Tamil Nadu IT Minister announced that the BOSS version of Linux wouls also be installed to offer a dual boot option.
Educationists around the world may have their own views on the effectiveness, or not, of the use of ICT in schools, but this scheme provides an excellent opportunity for a long-term study on the impact of such an intervention. It would be worthwhile to embed researchers in a few schools to observe how students use the laptops by themselves, whether the laptops become tools in the classroom environment and/or outside the classroom. The schools could be split into a control group and a test group with the researchers in the test group actively helping students make the most of the laptops and look at the results. The Azim Premji Foundation or NCERT or some other educational research organisation could initiate a project to study this. I hope they take this up.
One important aspect that has not been given much attention is the fact that teachers are not going to be given free laptops. Most school teachers are not computer-literate, not having had the opportunity to learn to use computers during their education. This tends to lead to a general fear and diffidence amongst teachers about using computers. When each of their students has a computer and begins to use it without requiring any help from the teacher, this could lead to teachers either becoming anti-computer and decrying the use of laptops as distracting from learning or teachers simply going into a shell, or teachers forbidding students from bringing or using laptops in school or even teachers commandeering laptops from their students for their own use.
College teachers are more likely to have used computers or have access to computers in their colleges and may be less fearful or diffident about laptops in the hands of their students.
There are around 130,000 teachers employed in high schools and higher secondary schools in Tamil Nadu. It would have been a good move on the part of the Government to give a free laptop to every school teacher too as part of the scheme. It may not be too late yet to include the teachers. Adding another 1.3 lakh laptops to 68 lakh laptops will not cost that much more and could help teachers begin to benefit from the use of IT too.
Once the laptops are in the hands of the students, what will they do with it? Putting laptops in the hands of students addresses the demand side challenge of making computers available amongst a large number of students. The challenges are now on the supply side
What kind of educational content can be made available to the students?
How do we make the content available in particular in Tamil which is the medium of instruction for a large majority of children in Government schools in Tamil Nadu?
How do we get the content across to the students if they don't have an Internet connection?
Since the Government has not announced any plans of providing students with educational content, the students will have to rely on free content available on the web and find it themselves. This opens up tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs across Tamil Nadu to create and deliver content in Tamil and English for the school/college curriculum, different kinds of teaching and learning material, various kinds of portals like career and job portals, news portals, entertainment portals and so on. This is also an opportunity for different educational portals to curate the best content already available on the web and bring it to the attention of students.
Since most parents and teachers are not conversant or comfortable with the use of computers, they are not going to be in a position to help students when they begin to explore with their laptops. Fears have been expressed of a generation divide which could lead to students "misusing" computers or being exposed to inappropriate content or being taken for a ride by others on social networking sites. As with any scheme, there is bound to be misuse by some people. How the misuse is perceived and dealt with by parents, teachers and society at large remains to be seen.
It may take a few years for the dust to settle and the impact of the scheme to become apparent, but all other states in India and countries around the world too will be keenly watching the outcome of this experiment in Tamil Nadu.
For students, Rs 1,500 crore has been allocated for procuring and distributing 784,000 laptops in 2012-13. The free laptop scheme was part of the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s promise to distribute 680,000 (sic) laptops to students in government-aided higher secondary school and colleges. The total amount to be spent on purchase of laptops will be Rs 10,200 crore over the next five years.
Last year, the state government spent Rs 912 crore on the purchase of 907,790 laptops.
Insightful interview with Mike Feerick of Alison.com on the future of online education. Alison.com provides "high-quality, interactive, certified and standards-based learning free to the individual learner", something similar to the Khan Academy. Feerick also talks about the sustainability of Salman Khan's Khan Academy.
Mission10X launches Advanced Academic Leadership Workshop in collaboration with Harvard Business School Publishing (Economic Times)
The aim of this programme is to facilitate principals of engineering colleges to enhance their leadership skills and develop them as institution builders who can make a significant difference to all the stakeholders in engineering education, Wipro said in a statement.
It is designed as three progressive levels of workshops, and includes instructor-led training as well as e-learning. During this process of leadership development, principals would enhance their capabilities in strategic thinking, vision building, skills and competency development, the company said.
Mission10X is a not for profit trust created by Wipro Limited in 2007 with a vision of "Pursuit of Excellence in Engineering Education through Innovation." The have conducted over 500 workshops for faculty members across various engineering colleges. One of their goals is to bridge the gap between the number of employable graduates and the number required by industry.
Bihar shifts focus from enrollment to quality in elementary education (Bihar Days)
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched the ‘Samjho Sikho’ campaign covering nearly 71,000 elementary schools across Bihar. ‘After achieving success in enrollment in schools, now our target is to improve quality of education in the schools,’ Nitish Kumar said after launching the scheme, also mentioning that the state government has outlined 20 parameters that will be followed by all schools.
The CM has also written a letter addressing teachers circulated to all elementary schools, to be read out to students wherein he suggests ways to improve quality of education. He said that in the last five and a half years, the state government has worked hard to ensure that children are enrolled in schools. “The government’s measures have succeeded to a large extent as only 2.5 percent children are now out of school. When I came to power in November 2005, 12 percent children were out of schools,” Nitish Kumar said.
No enforcing of uniform school curriculum, but core curriculum is being used voluntarily, says Kapil Sibal (Indian Express)
“There is no proposal to enforce a uniform system and curriculum at secondary and higher secondary levels,” HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha.
“CABE has endorsed the need for a core curriculum in science and mathematics at secondary and higher secondary levels across all Education Boards in the country, so as to provide a level playing field to all studentsto join professional courses,” Sibal said.
Replying to supplementaries, the minister said 21 Boards unanimously decided to adopt core curriculum in science and mathematics at secondary level.
“Accordingly, NCERT has developed core syllabi in Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics at higher secondary stage in collaboration with Council of Boards of secondary education and CBSE,” he said, adding core syllabus for commerce stream too is likely to be completed by next month.
Biometric fingerprint scanners in schools - not for students, but for teachers!
The Haryana government has decided to introduce biometric fingerprint scanners in around 2,622 government schools across the State in an effort to keep a check on teachers and deal with increasing absenteeism. [FutureGov]
Humanities professors turn entrepreneurs! - spot opportunity in humanities education amidst budget cuts for state colleges and set up the New College of the Humanities [Economic Times]
Experiential learning: College students set up and run a business on campus at PSG Institute of Technology, Coimbatore. The responsibility for the business is passed down to junior batches as the seniors graduate. An excellent hands-on entrepreneurial experience for the students during their college years. [Livemint]
Technology and the Internet are going to revolutionise higher education - but how?
"I have a vision for where this is going to go," [Gagan] Biyani [Udemy's co-founder] tells me. "The price of college is going to fall, and the Internet is going to cause that fall." He pauses and adds, "The rest of it is really difficult to figure out."
But will the revolution be led by the colleges? Unlikely, says Derek Thompson.
Colleges rarely think about efficiency, because all the signals tell them to spend more money on fewer students. Theoretically, the most efficient school would give the highest quality education to the most people for the lowest price. In reality, national rankings reward universities for rejecting the highest number of applicants, teaching the fewest number of students per class, and spending the most per capita on resources. That doesn't mean colleges are failing. It means the system suffers from an incentive to be inefficient. [The Atlantic]
New National Policy on Education in the works [Deccan Herald]
“There is an urgent need to frame a new national policy on education as the existing policy is too old to meet new challenges emerging out of globalisation now. The last policy was framed in the year 1986. And some minor modifications were undertaken in 1992. Since then, our education scenario and nature of employment opportunities have changed substantially,” a ministry official told Deccan Herald.
The new policy will seek to bring substantial changes in education system by introducing academic reforms so as to bring improvement in quality of education. The vocational education will be another focus area, besides increasing access and quality in education to meet the international standards, to take advantage of the demographic dividend of the country and to fulfill the aspirations and rights of youth to gainful employment and contribute to national productivity.
.......
A national-level conference of vice-chancellors, organised by the University Grant Commission in March, too, had recommended a new education policy at the earliest. It had suggested that it was important to look into the kind of a policy framework appropriate for analysis of access, equity and quality in higher education in India. The participants underlined that development of tertiary education is largely dependent on the output of secondary education as the secondary school sub-sector contributes substantially to access and equity concerns observed at the entry level of the undergraduate courses.
Wipro to launch a $35 tablet- targeted at mass education market [Livemint]
“Can you make a $600 iPad (he meant tablet) for, say, $35? That is the question. We are looking at bringing the total cost of ownership down,” Anurag Srivastava, the chief technology officer and senior vice-president for Wipro’s global IT business, said in an interview. ....
Cost will be a critical factor as affordability in emerging markets is one of the underlying themes of the partnership with imec. The projects have a social aspect to them, Srivastava said. The tablet, for instance, is aimed at the rural and mass education segment, which fits in with the main thrust of Wipro chairman Azim Premji’s philanthropy—learning. The device is being developed with the main aim of creating a low-cost product with applications in education as well as the “government sector”, he said. “We’re looking at two-three proofs-of-concept in a year’s time. It’s not just a deployable consumer product, right? It’s about establishing that you can solve the process problem at ‘x’ dollars, as a total cost,” he said.
Companies have for long run schools near their factories for the children of their staff. But that’s corporate social responsibility, not charity, and hence not scalable. Things have taken a turn for the better now. Indian businessmen, made rich beyond belief by the stock market boom of the last seven years, are moving in to plug the gap in primary education.
The article mentions the efforts of Pratham (which has apparently received large donations for several years from high net-worth Indians, or their companies, including Mukesh Ambani, Ajay Piramal, Rohini Nilekani, Gautam Thapar and Kumarmangalam Birla), the Bharti Group's Satya Bharti schools, the Azim Premji Foundation, Shiv Nadar Foundation's Vidyagyan and the GMR Group's GMR Varalakshmi Foundation.
Salman Khan describes how he got started, what they have been doing at Khan Academy using video, and brings out the following key insights in his talk.
Self-paced learning can make a huge difference. Students prefer to learn by watching videos rather than learning face to face from a teacher. Videos offer students the ability to learn at their own pace from the comfort of their own homes, replay the videos any number of times, go back and replay videos of concepts that they want a refresher on and not be embarrassed to have to ask their teacher to repeat something many times.
Rather than teach in class and assign homework to test the understanding, students can now learn at their own pace at home. Their understanding can be tested in class under the watchful eye of the teacher
All of the tests can be administered online and the teacher can have access to all the usage and test data to to be able to diagnose and address the gaps in the students' understanding.
The conventional model tests the understanding of students but doesn't insist on mastery. The teacher simply moves on to the next topic after administering a test and grading it even if there are gaps in the students' understanding. But now the students can be asked to master a topic before moving on to the next. Students can be encouraged to fail and the teacher is there to help students gain mastery. They will be asked to move on to the next topic only after achieving mastery on what they are currently working on. This ensures that there are no gaps in the students' understanding.
Rather than the conventional approach of improving the student-teacher ratio to improve the learning outcomes, the metric we need to focus on is the student-to-valuable human time spent with the teacher ratio. This humanises the classroom experience and facilitates learning far better.
Students who have gained mastery can help their peers who are yet to gain mastery. Since the Khan Academy model works over the Internet, this kind of peer-to-peer learning could happen between two people anywhere in the world. We could have a global one-world classroom.
Video is the killer app for education in the Indian context, since children learn best in their own native languages. Of all the Digital Learning Resources (DLR) or Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) we can use in improving learning, video is the most effective at least cost. Imagine the possibilities if we had a Khan Academy equivalent of thousands of videos in each of the Indian languages with the best teachers teaching each of the subjects. Every child in India will have access to these and can learn at his or her own pace.
There are multiple constituencies that can benefit from these videos.
School children can now learn from the best teachers at their own pace, from the comfort of their homes.
College students and those already in the workforce who may not have learnt their basics thoroughly in the past can now relearn whatever they want from the best teachers at their own pace and in privacy.
Today's school teachers who may not be fully on top of their subject (due to lack of good teachers when they were in school/college) will now have the option of strengthening their understanding in the privacy of their homes, without any embarrassment.
School teachers who may be thorough with their subject but not very good at teaching can now learn from the best teachers on how to help children learn by diagnosing and addressing the gaps in students' understanding.
Parents can also learn the stuff that their own children are learning in school. As adults they will learn the stuff faster and also help their own children learn better. Parents need no more feel at sea when their children are learning stuff that they know nothing about.
With the imminent explosion in the number of screens (computers, tablets, mobile phones, and even the good old television) that will be accessible to children, all enabled for WiFi/3G/4G/DTH, videos would be an excellent way to make the best teachers accessible to every single child in India.
An organisation like the Azim Premji Foundation is ideally placed to do a Khan Academy in India, if they choose to do so.
