Net savvy educator
Although purblind educrats back home tend to regard the nation’s 450 million children as a nuisance to be tolerated rather than nurtured, savvy educators abroad have discerned a huge business opportunity in providing meaningful education to youth hungry for advancement and self-betterment opportunities. And their task has been made easier with the explosive growth of the new ICT (information communication technologies) revolution which has facilitated the delivery of distance learning programmes over the spreading internet.Inevitably NRIs (non-resident Indians) who tend to have considerable awareness of the depth and extent of education deprivation in Indian society, are in the vanguard of the rush to fill the vacuum created by the huge unsatisfied demand for high quality learning programmes and foreign certification. To the lengthening list of NRIs intent upon providing sophisticated learning programmes and associated certification to Indian youth, add the name of Narasimhan Kannan, the Virginia (USA)-based founder and CEO of VCampus Corporation (estb. 1994) which recently inaugurated an India office (through its Bangalore-based subsidiary Prosoft Learning) to market its high quality internet technologies learning and certification programmes.
"VCampus specialises in offering career starter professional certification programmes for people who are aware of the power and potential of the internet as the business and transactional medium of the future. To creative, innovative high school upward students as well as working adults who are familiar with the basics of utilising and navigating the worldwide web or the internet, we offer our proprietory foundation course in web technologies and voice, video and data convergence over the internet program apart from 12 other programs of global providers. Our distance learning programs are designed for youth who aspire to make a career in web design, internet security, server administration, working with the Linux operating system etc," says Kannan an alumnus of IIT-Madras and America’s blue-chip Dartmouth College and a US-based serial entrepreneur who promoted V-Campus in 1995, left it in 2000 and returned in 2004 when the company was in deep trouble following the bursting of the dotcom bubble worldwide in 2001, to restore it to health and profitability.
Kannan believes there is "infinite demand" for the tried and tested online internet learning programmes offered by VCampus. With the continuous development of the worldwide web as a medium for transacting business, trade and financial services, he estimates the demand for certifications at 1 million per year against the current supply of a mere 50,000 of trained professionals worldwide. "In 2001 we established an office in China and currently are working with 200 training institutes and two universities to develop the internet navigation and transactional skills of their students. We believe there is perhaps greater latent demand for our net-related programs in India as it depends on export of IT services much more than China," says Kannan.
Wind beneath your wings!
Dilip Thakore
IBO visionary
Like Indian industry and business, the country’s education sector has also become infected with globalisation fever. Across the country a growing number of high-end schools are contracting with offshore exami-nation boards such as the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), Geneva and Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), UK and the American Middle Schools Association to offer Indian students their designer syllabuses, curriculums and globally accepted certification. Of the offshore examination boards, the one with first mover advantage is the Geneva-based IBO which currently has 41 upscale schools countrywide affiliated with it and offering its primary and middle years and IB diploma (class XII) programmes with even the venerated Doon School signing up this year. "I believe educators in India have begun to appreciate the high quality of our carefully researched syllabuses and study programmes as well as our ethos, philosophy and vision," says Jeffrey R. Beard, director general of IBO who was the keynote speaker at a symposium on IB education organised by Pathways World School, Delhi on April 28. "With rising demand for our study programmes, IBO will be investing greater resources in India for localised teacher training," Beard informed the 250 delegates at the symposium.
One of the major points of discussion at the symposium was IBO’s class XII exam results declaration schedule (the first week of July when the admission process is almost over in India) and the fact that barring Mumbai University, no other university in India (cf. 1,800 universities worldwide) accepts the IB diploma as an entry qualification. "Though we would like to help the managements of Indian schools, we can’t change our examination timing to suit one country. But we’re making efforts for acceptance with Indian universities and have set up an Indian Development Council for lobbying with authorities so that IB diploma is accepted as a college entry qualification, as it is in 125 countries," says Beard an alumnus of US Naval Academy and University of Wisconsin who signed up with IBO in January 2006 after quitting his job with the Switerzland based-agribusiness multinational Syngenta AG.
Meanwhile Beard is working on building a network of IB schools in India which will connect them with education NGOs and teacher training programmes that IBO runs in Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Upgrading teachers to teach the IB curriculum is one of the biggest activities of this world-renowned school education certifying body founded in 1968 with over 2,000 affiliated schools worldwide.
"There’s rising awareness in India that knowledge acquisition and dissemination is the key to economic development and there’s almost unlimited demand for high quality education. We are here to cater to this demand and with government help would like to make IB education accessible to children in government schools as well," says Beard.
If only…
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
New B-school driver
Historically a city renowned for its engineering and science institutions of tertiary education, B-school promoters have been slow to set up shop in the port city of Chennai despite its enviable industrialisation record. The city’s pioneer internationally benchmarked B-school — the Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM) — admitted its first batch of postgrad students in 2003. Since then several other capital-intensive B-schools including the Stansfield School of Business (estb. 2005) and Chennai Business School (estb. 2006) have been promoted in this bustling city (pop. 4.5 million).To this growing list add the intriguingly nomenclatured Smot Business School, a new professional education enterprise focused upon career specific course specilisations which was formally inaugurated in the city on March 28. Promoted by academic Dr. R. Narasimhan and entrepreneur Nazeer Kabir, construction of the state-of-the-art, wireless Smot campus is fast nearing completion on the Old Mahabalipuram Road in Perungadi at a projected capital cost of Rs.3.5 crore.
This spanking new B-school which will admit its first batch of 120 students in June, has already entered into partnership with the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (CAMC), the world’s largest consultants club with a membership of 3,000 business professionals, to provide Smot students consulting apprenticeships, career planning advice and access to its case study material. In addition, CAMC will deploy its members to serve as visiting faculty at Smot. Moreover the B-school has also signed an agreement with Saint Mary’s University (SMU), Canada, to enable its students to transfer credits to SMU, facilitate co-certification of the Smot programme by SMU and deploy faculty from SMU to teach at Smot.
"Currently B-school curriculums are designed to deliver broad functional specialisations which seldom meet the requirements of industry resulting in job dissatisf-action and high attrition rates. We offer micro specialty career tracks within basic courses to avoid mismatch between what is taught in B-school and what is required by industry," says the highly qualified Narasimhan, an alumnus of Madras University and IIT-Roorkee, with doctorates from IIT-Madras and the Tata Insitute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.
Academic qualifications apart, Narasimhan brings a wealth of teaching and industry experience to his job as director of Chennai’s newest B-school. He put in 16 years as a professor at the Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering in Chennai, two years with HCL Technologies and served as head of American Systems for Education and Technology which morphed into GLIM. Moreover Narasimhan served as deputy dean of GLIM for three years prior to putting in his papers to conceptualise and co-promote Smot B-school.
A second Smot campus at Hyderabad is already under construction while ambitious plans to establish another campus in north Chennai by 2008 and in Bangalore and Mumbai are on Narasimhan’s drawing board. Also on the cards is a Centre of Excellence for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the Chennai campus. This centre will be spearheaded by Bob White, president of RBI International who has authored ISO norms for CSR and is one of the members of the academic council of Smot. "It’s important to instill social responsibility in young managers and sensitise them to CSR. To this end we will be holding workshops across the country next year. In course of time we will introduce CSR certification norms for corporates," says Narasimhan.
Right on, brother!
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)
RGI saviour
The Bangalore-based Reva Group of Institutions (RGI) set up its first engineering college in the garden city in 2002 and has since established a formidable reputation as a provider of high quality engineering and business management study programmes. Last year (2006) RGI’s flagship institution, Reva Institute of Technology and Management (RITM), was ranked in the top 15 of the 134 engineering colleges in the state by the Belgaum headquartered Visveswaraya Technological University, the apex affiliating university of all engineering colleges in Karnataka. "We entered the engineering education sector because as a civil engineering company we experienced great difficulty in hiring industry-ready engineering graduates. Our motivation to enter the education sector is to produce industry-ready engineers year after year," says P. Shyamaraju a commerce graduate of Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupathi (Andhra Pradesh) who took charge of RGI in 2005.
Shyamaraju started his career as a civil contractor and entrepreneur by promoting Divyashree Constructions — a well known and respected firm in Bangalore’s real estate circles — in 1973. Since then the firm has diversified into real estate development, software, mechanical manufacturing and latterly into education.
Shyamaraju’s entry into engineering and professional education was facilitated by a set of fortuitous circumstances. In 2005 he was invited by Bheemaneni Educational Systems Trust, Bangalore, promoters of RGI (estb. 2002) to take over the group comprising the Reva Institute of Technology and Management, Reva Institute of Science and Management and Reva Institute of Education which was threatened with closure due to imminent bankruptcy.
"Since I had always been interested in upgrading engineering education, I felt the public interest would be served by saving RGI, which was then sited on a 10 acre campus with 55,000 sq. ft built-up area. I undertook to clear RGI’s debts and set about transforming it into a modern group of education institutions with state-of-the-art infrastructure," recalls Shyamaraju.
Since then the composite RGI campus has been extended to 35 acres and six new buildings constructed to expand the built up area to 600,000 sq ft to house modern laboratories, an auditorium, fully-wired classrooms with the entire campus connected by wireless network. Currently RITM has 2,000 students on its rolls and the number of study programmes offered by RGI has been increased to six engineering, seven undergrad and two postgrad science and two postgraduate business management programmes.
RGI’s future plans include intensified academic collaboration with globally renowned offshore technological universities and industry. "In the next six-seven years we intend to become an autonomous deemed university," says Shyamaraju. Quite obviously an individual who likes to dream big-time.
Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)
Wilson’s theme song
British academia seems to have made a re-discovery of India. Even as several Indo-British academic initiatives including the Rs.65 crore UKIERI (UK-India Education Research Initiative) and a heavily advertised five UK universities scholarship reality contest gathers momentum, the traffic of British academics visiting India is intensifying.The latest high profile academic to visit (in April) was Prof. Tim Wilson, vice-chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire (UH), who is upbeat about greater interaction and cooperation between the two countries. "The number of Indian students aspiring to study in the UK is rising year on year as evidenced by the rising inflow of applications into UH. We have developed a reputation for high quality learning and teaching opportunities and are also ranked as one of the best research universities worldwide with an excellent placement record of graduates," says Wilson.
According to Wilson in 2005-06, 425 Indian students enrolled in Hertfordshire U, making it the third most popular UK varsity for Indian students. Currently UH has 22,000 students including 2,000 postgrads from more than 90 countries around the world and boasts three research institutes with particular strengths in psychology, history, astrophysics and computer science research.
On a whirlwind tour of India to promote UH, Wilson’s theme song was the many virtues and accomplishments of this British varsity. "We pride ourselves on being a business-interfacing university and receive considerable feedback from industry. We mould our study programmes accordingly," he says adding that UH has a particularly good reputation in the pharmaceuticals, communication and creative industries because of high satisfaction levels with UH graduates.
A highly qualified alumnus of Reading (maths and computer science), Lancaster (operations research) and Walden, USA (Ph D) universities with considerable industry experience, Wilson who was appointed vice-chancellor of UH in 2003 emphasises that the varsity is particularly appreciative of the leavening role foreign — especially subcontinental — students play within UH.
"We have had very good experiences with our Indian students who tend to be hard working and intelligent. We would love to have more of them and to this end I need to learn how to make them more business ready for Indian industry. That’s also an objective of my passage to India," he says.
Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)