Bulletin No.109 Date: 1st June - 15th June 2011 Announcements CONTENT ASERF has instituted Dr Stya Paul Young Educationist Award’ for honouring Young Educationists who have Aspect demonstrated their potential by making an impact on Indian education. Applications from the eligible scholars are invited for the Cloud computing in education Award of the year 2011. Click here to download the prescribed format along with the terms and conditions. Apeejay Stya University announces admission News for the session 2011-12 1. Battle between AICTE, institutes over PGDM courses continues Apeejay Stya University is offering diverse catalogue of technical, scientific, management and liberal arts courses 2. Number of overseas students continue to fall in Australia for the academic session 2011-12. Applicants for admission 3. State seeks AICTE approval for 52 new technical institutes accepted on the basis of comprehensive merit, judged by 4. HRD Ministry proposes to extend RTE till Class 10 their academic excellence, their extracurricular achievements, and their utilization of the resources they 5. Pearson Education Seeks Larger Presence in India have had available. As part of the application, the University 6. Shri Kapil Sibal Addresses 58th Meeting of CABE recognize a number of examination scores to establish academic excellence, including AIEEE, GMAT, SAT, and 7. Summary Record of Discussions of the 58th CABE SAT II. 8. Discussion of the State Education Ministers’ Conference For more, visit: www.apeejay.edu/asu 9. Education summit in Canada Apeejay Signs MOU with Dutch and French 10. Twin engineering degree Universities Analysis/Opinion/Innovative Practice Apeejay Institute of Design (AID), New Delhi and Apeejay Stya University (ASU), Haryana signed (MOU) with AKV| St. Joost, Avans University of Applied Sciences, Breda, The 1. Skill shortage presents hurdle to India's growth: World Bank Netherlands and Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam/ University of Applied Sciences Rotterdam, The 2. Reshaping India’s higher education landscape Netherlands. Further looking for long-term partnership in 3. New IITs, IIMs are non-performing assets' academics and research, Apeejay Stya University has 4. Soon, study a lesson prepared by the Tatas signed two (MOU)with its School of Management Sciences and School of Design & Visual Arts with EM Normandie, 5. Lack of research facilities still haunts IITs Caen, Le Havre, Deauville, France (E.M Normandie- 6. I touch students’ lives, and it feels good Normandy Business School) and with Escole Superieure Des Arts Appliques De Troyes (Groupe Esc- Troyes- 7. Ten-year balance Champagne) respectively. 8. E-governance in education Get Involved 9. First Advantage's background screening trends International Two-Year Teaching Fellowship 10. How India Inc is funding primary education in India The Apeejay Stya University invites applications for 11. End state interference, says pro-chancellor its two-year teaching fellowship in India. Applicants 12. ICSE V S CBSE? The debate rages would be based in Sohna, Gugoan, Haryana India, 13. Online encyclopedia promotes itself as teaching-learning tool and take up to three classes in the subject of their proficiency. Fellows would gain experience in 14. IMT: A business school that knows no boundaries teaching in another culture, within an extremely 15. How 20 lakh additional teachers can be unleashed by use of technology innovative university system. 16. India Journal: No Country for Women Please visit our website for more: 17. I am disappointed by the lack of Mandarin teachers in India' prospect http://apeejay.edu/asu/getinvolved/fellowships.php 18. Back to the class Partnership 19. The issue of exclusion in the Indian education sector Dear Partners, 20. Today’s education system has a weak beginning 21. Sobering India Day thoughts at Oxford The Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation (ASERF) invites news, articles, resource material, 22. India’s Education System Should be Revised opinions and analyses on relevant educational issues 23. 100% cut-off symptom of a disease, says Yash Pal that can be highlighted in our by-monthly e-bulletins 24. How case studies from India are being taught at Harvard Business School and on the ASERF portal. We request if you could spare a few moments of your Resources valuable time to have a look at our website and guide us on our regular initiatives. 1. Government Investments Fuelling Growth in Indian Higher Education Sector 2. 1% of India’s ‘literates’ can’t read: IIM Ahmedabad study Editor 3. Indian students in Canada more than double in a year Dr. Mithilesh Kumar Singh 4. India Lacks ‘Depth of Learning’: OECD Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation Apeejay Stya House 14 Commercial Complex, Masjid Moth, Greater Kailash, Part – II, New Delhi - 110048 Tel. No. (91 – 11) 29228296 / 97 / 98. Fax o. (91 – 11) 29223326 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.aserf.org.in ASERF E News Bulletin on EDUCATION ASPECT productivity applications, and Microsoft has announced that it will offer Microsoft Office 2010 online next year. The cloud reduces costs and complexity and provides scalability. Cloud computing in education The biggest advantage that the cloud brings is to reduce The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform costs and improve efficiency. An institution can rely on the shift that gets geeks excited. It will, undoubtedly, transform the ‘pay-as-you-go’ characteristic of the three pillars of the information technology industry, but it will also cloud: IaaS, PaaS and Saas. profoundly change the way people work and companies Ease of maintenance increases efficiency as the pain of operate.” —The Economist maintaining the software is now shifted to the cloud The education sector is the second largest sector globally services provider. Technical issues related to online portals and Indian school system is the world’s largest school for distance education programmes and online system with over 1.12 million schools. The development of examinations are the responsibility of the cloud service the sector is key for economic growth and improvement in provider. the standard of living. One of the primary reasons for the high dropout rate in According to the 2011 census, India’s literacy rate has Indian schools is the insipid form of learning propagated by reached 74 per cent, increasing by 9 per cent since 2001. rote learning. Interactive applications delivered through the But, what is important is the quality of this literacy. In 2009, cloud can not only standardise teaching methods and 96 per cent of children in rural India, who were six years to content across schools, but also add richness and variety to 14 years old, were enrolled in schools — of these, 73 per the learning experience. cent were enrolled in government schools and 53 per cent Teacher-training programmes at remote locations or rural could read class two texts. The government has allocated areas are often caught in a web of ignorance themselves. Rs 52,057 crore for the education sector in the Union Cloud computing solutions can be used for teacher-training budget for financial year 2011-2012, up by 24 per cent courses and rapidly train a larger number of teachers. compared with the past financial year. Is this enough? Many adults, deprived of minimum education at an early While such statistics paint an extremely positive picture of stage of life, are later reluctant to go to schools or do not the Indian educational sector, the overall quality of have the time to do so. Cloud can help bring mass education still remains an issue. There is a need for more awareness among the rural population through interactive effort on multiple fronts to enhance the quality of applications delivered using newer means of delivering educational discourse, improve standardisation and education through mobile phones and televisions. increase the reach of vocational and other alternate education channels to all sections of society. SciCloud is a project that is studying the scope of establishing private clouds at universities. With such The challenges posed by the growing appetite for networks, researchers can efficiently use the already education requirements are immense. India will have existing resources in solving computationally-intensive about 45 million people in the age group of 18 years to 20 scientific, mathematical, and academic problems. years by 2020. To train them, we need more than 20 million teachers. As per present trends, we will create only The project established a Eucalyptus-based private cloud 20,000 teachers by 2020. and developed several customised images that can be used in solving problems from mobile web services, Traditional forms of technology in education pose a distributed computing to bio-informatics domains. number of other key challenges. Cost of technology, both hardware and software, which are unaffordable for the Online tutoring has become a source of employment in masses; cost of maintenance of IT (information India. In the rural areas, where career choices are limited, technology) setups; power shortage, particularly in the cloud online tutoring can play a major role in helping a rural areas; and a lack of trained teachers — especially in person earn his bread and butter. IT awareness and knowledge are only some of the issues. At peak times, online tutoring vendors like Tutor Vista’s Cloud computing and related business models provide teachers coach 2,500 American students in one to-one answers to many of the challenges faced by the Indian sessions. educational sector. IT in general has proven to be a Opportunity is knocking and while there is no doubt that the catalyst in making the experience of learning more private sector will seize it, the government has to form enjoyable and effective and cloud computing could provide partnerships to enable India to utilise the full potential of answers to many of the challenges faced by the education cloud computing. sector in India.