Share best practices, exceed benchmark
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CII working for a new excellence model in education
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Aiming high: Participants are all ears at the CII Summit on Quality Education in Bangalore
The CII National Summit on Quality Education is gaining momentum. It has grown to become an independent event with over 500 participants from across country, 40 speakers (national and international) and has over 10 intensive sessions over a period of two days exploring various factors affecting the quality in leadership in Indian education.
This year, the summit was held in Bangalore, with The Hindu EducationPlus being the media partner. Chairman of CII Institute of Quality, Bangalore, K.N. Shenoy, called for liberating education in India. Modern-day administrators of education have great responsibilities owing to changes in aspirations and speed of life. Successful institutions should share their best practices to enable India achieve its dream of becoming a developed country. The goal of the national debate is to gear up the educational process by adopting a new excellence model where schools, colleges and universities can compete beyond a benchmark.
Vijay Thadani, CEO of NIIT Ltd., demanded the recruitment of best teachers in all institutions and at all levels. Acute shortage of skills is haunting the industry, he observed. He added that more than 10 million jobs were vacant in the service sector although 41 million have registered with employment exchanges.
No role models
R. Natarajan, former Chairman of the All-India Council of Technical Education, released the CII Framework for Excellence in Education. He called for innovation in all professions. He noted that research was at its lowest level and neither the teachers nor the students had any good role models to emulate.
Former Director General of CII N. Srinivasan said that the need of the hour was to infuse the younger generation with the competitive spirit to face the challenges of changing complexities of the modern world. He also reiterated the necessity to liberate Indian education by enabling the masses to learn from everywhere, to adopt leadership blended with values.
Considering a changing paradigm of growth format of population versus education in four countries (Canada, China, Japan and India), India shall move forward to have groomed a stable pyramidal position by 2025 and shall be a world leader in education, noted Andrew Thomson, Former Minister of Learning, Government of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Australia woke up much earlier to put its academies on a top notch and attract the global student community, said Michelle Selinger, Director of Education Practice, Global Public Sector, CISCO Systems. Our major area of strength has been the quality of teachers, she said during her presentation on Global Perspectives.
What followed was a discussion on the Karnataka model of governmental initiatives. Many teachers, parents and academicians interacted with S. Selva Kumar, Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the State. Narrating in detail the efforts taken towards universalisation of primary education, he said this huge challenge was met with greater impact and reach like never before.
No easy job
Chairman of the session, N. Srinivasan, reacting to a question about why no parent encourages his/her child to become a teacher, said that a teacher’s profession is not an easy job. “Teachers are not manufactured, but made by a conviction to serve and dedication to impart knowledge. Like students are not born idiots, but are made by the system, it is time to customise education to our country’s needs,” he concluded.
During the sessions on higher education, Bhanoji Rao, adjunct faculty, National University of Singapore, shared the journey taken by the university.
True leadership
Many leaders have either stopped or just forgotten ‘learning,’ claimed H.A. Ranganath, Director, National Assessment and Accreditation Council. A leadership has to evolve through interaction between the leader and different stakeholders and the true essence of leadership is not the leader but the relationship, he asserted.
In the session on creating a conducive environment for research and consultancy in higher education, Narendran, professor from Chennai, observed that engineering and medical sciences were the top preferences, while science, commerce and arts followed.
Today’s market-driven economy has not really helped research, commented R.N. Sharma of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He called for provision of incentives for doctoral studies. Session Chairman Mahadevan noted that the country spends a meagre six per cent on research and development.
A tutorial on the CII Education Excellence Model was conducted by Senior Counsellor of IQ A. Senthil Kumaran. He opined that in today’s dynamic environment, educational institutions are facing new competitive issues from external factors. To remain original and creative, they need to equip themselves to face challenges by enhancing institutional innovationand encourage management innovation. While sharing the salient features of the model, he said it was holistic, focused on all its stakeholders and driven by the processes.
The second day began with a debate on continuing education in the corporate world. Director of Infosys Leadership Institute Girish Vaidya spoke about the “Infy” experience and noted the senior leaders should change their mindset to give room for wonderful developments.
Change of mindset
In an exemplary true-to-life story on ‘The Barefoot College Experience’, Chandra J. Kanjilal, executive director of Stree Sangha Kshema Trust from Andhra Pradesh, stated that within five years of educating the women in Ramapuram village, a semi-arid zone in Anantapur district, cases of rape, molestation and wife beating had stopped among the families of members of the women’s group. While the Trust has been offering education support to 78 girl students, women are taught about organic farming, environmental awareness and health.
Samyukta Balakrishnan, manager of British Council’s school projects, spoke about the student exchange programme in India, U.K. and Uganda. Bernadette Anand, visiting Fulbright Lecturer from Bank Street College, New York, spoke about the school system in the U.S.
As much as 80 per cent of rural Indians still do not have access to higher education. It is necessary for most of our schools, colleges and university campuses to transform into Creative Learning Centres, stated Nagalambika Devi, Commissioner of Department of Collegiate Education.
A panel discussion on “Educational Institutional Leadership in India-Road Ahead” was held as part of the two-day event. CII Principal Advisor Y.S. Rajan insisted that our education pattern should be done away with. He also called for removal of answer templates to questions in schools. Apex powers vested with educational authorities, corruption, and directionless leadership or the lack of it have made children and their parents to turn to Singapore, U.K., U.S. or Australia, he observed.
CII’s S.K. Kakkar posed many questions to the delegates — whether the younger generation would be able to face challenges; would they disagree with confidence and dignity if in an argument; whether they will be able to handle successes and failures, as well as the uncertainties of the future…?
The summit had 14 exhibitors on modern education.
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