Colleges in a fix as students vent anger on social media

CHENNAI: After an engineering student committed suicide this week, the students of her college went online to vent their ire. One post on a page giving the name of the college spoke about a protest that was being planned and asked that it be shared widely and discussed by as many students as possible. Another was a video of students engaged in a sit-in protest being lathicharged by police.

Strictly regulated on campus, students of many engineering colleges have taken the online route to air their grievances, including on social media. Past students have joined in too, and this may eventually turn away prospective students from those colleges, experts say. They add that college managements should treat their students as adults and get feedback from them.

Social media consultant Kiruba Shankar, who also delivers guest lectures in engineering colleges, said, "This (negative publicity online) will definitely make an impact on the reputation of colleges. Prospective students and parents always ask around about a college before they enroll there. Now, they also take their search online, and what they see there is considered credible, particularly if it comes from alumni."

When students and parents see a lot of protests, or talk of irrational regulations or suicides they get the feeling that something is amiss and avoid it. After all, there are quite a few options when it comes to engineering colleges. "College managements must take cognizance of online reputation, as much as they try to build a brand offline through advertisements and events," Shankar said.

But, there are no shortcuts. Former Anna University vice-chancellor A Kalanidhi said that college managements and faculty, many over 40 years, continue to approach education with the same attitude as when they were students. "Ten years ago there were few girls in engineering colleges. Now at least half the student population is female. The approach cannot be the same that was adopted 10 years ago. They must take students into consideration, and work to provide counselling for students and training for teachers to handle students," Kalanidhi said.

Kiruba Shankar said that he has noticed that only in institutions where the students are deterred from giving any feedback that students go on a rampage online. "Only when gagged they go anonymous and online. When they are given freedom to communicate and give constructive criticism they act very responsibly."

Though clearly mentioning the institution being targeted, much of the posts are anonymous. "Nowadays students know that their digital footprint can make a lasting impact in their higher studies or careers, so they are being clever about it. But, they ensure that the word about a bad college or learning environment spreads among those concerned," said a second-year engineering student in a city college.

College of Air Warfare signs MoU with Osmania University

Indian Air Force's College of Air Warfare (CAW) at Secunderabad has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Osmania University for conducting PhD courses for its officers.

HYDERABAD: Indian Air Force's College of Air Warfare (CAW) at Secunderabad has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Osmania University for conducting PhD courses for its officers. 

The MoU, which aims at academic collaboration between both the institutions to enable IAF officers to enhance training prospects in the area of defence and strategic studies, was signed by varsity Registrar K.Pratap Reddy and the college's deputy commandant, Air Commodore Neeraj Yadav, Saturday, said a defence statement 

The training programmes being conducted at CAW aim at enhancing international strategic understanding of armed forces officers in various disciplines and application of the same to address various defence related issues pertaining to strategic planning. 

A premier training institution of the IAF, CAW also conducts courses for the other two services as well as friendly foreign countries. 

Osmania University is one of the oldest and largest institutions of higher learning in the country. The university was assessed by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in 2008 and is accredited with the highest 'A' grade.

Indians No 2 users of MIT-Harvard e-courses

BANGALORE: Over 2.5 lakh Indians have registered for courses on edX, the massive open online course (Mooc) platform founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University in May 2012 to host online university-level courses.

This makes Indians the second largest community, after Americans, to register for these courses, said edX president Anant Agarwal, an Indian American who grew up in Mangalore and who has been teaching the circuits & electronics course in MIT for 26 years.

The courses have been put together and are led by some of the finest professors in the world. Students require just an internet connection. The courses are free, can be normally completed within a duration of 4 weeks to 12 weeks, and those who complete them receive a certificate from the university that provides the course.

Some 2 million people from 196 countries have registered for edX courses, of which about 6 lakh are from the US, about 80,000 each from the UK and Brazil, and about 60,000 from China.

For Indians, the most popular courses have been those related to computer science, engineering, and public health. Globally and for Indians, the two most popular courses are 'Introduction to computer science', led by Harvard faculty David J Malan and Rob Bowden, and the circuits & electronics course led by Agarwal.

"Some 2.2 lakh people are currently registered for the introduction to computer science course, and some 3.6 lakh have registered for this course in the past two years. The circuits & electronics course has had a total of 2.5 lakh students since it started. About 12% of the students in both courses are from India," said Agarwal.

Indians account for about 50% of the 70,000 enrolments in Harvard's public health course. Agarwal said this strong interest from Indians was thanks to the Medical Council of India spreading the word among doctors.

edX, a not-for-profit initiative, and Coursera, a for-profit initiative by two Stanford professors, are among the biggest Moocs providers. edX now offers some 160 courses including in science, engineering, business, law, history, social sciences, and artificial intelligence. Only around 6% of those who register for these courses actually complete them and go on to receive certificates.

For this and other reasons, Moocs still has a lot of critics. Few think it can completely substitute classroom teaching. The big promise of Moocs is that it can take world-class education to those who are otherwise excluded for socioeconomic or geographic reasons. But a recent University of Pennsylvania study revealed that over 80% of surveyed people taking Moocs already hold college degrees.

Agarwal is unfazed by these arguments. Moocs, he says, are better than what you get in many universities, and particularly valuable for countries like India, for students who can't get into the top schools or can't afford them. "Today's generation is also used to watching videos. And our courses give a video game-like experience. So students are very engaged. We are planning a big push in India," he said.

He also noted instances of students benefiting from these courses. "One US student who took our software-as-a-service course added that to his LinkedIn profile and received a job interview call from a company in New York the very next day. Amol Bhave, a high school student in Jabalpur, took my course in circuits & electronics. He applied to MIT soon after and got in with financial aid," Agarwal said.

Take just one test for MBA, MCA seats

BANGALORE: The Karnataka government and college managements have arrived at a consensus to conduct a single entrance exam for their seats. Earlier there were two tests: CMAT and KMAT.

The government seats will be filled through centralized counselling conducted by the Visvesvaraya Technological University. The other half will be filled by the management using PGCET scores. The exam which will be open to non-Karnataka students is expected to be conducted on June 2 or 8.

Vacant government seats will fall into the management quota after August 30. To fill these, the managements will conduct KMAT. The test is likely to be held on September 1 and is mainly for non-Karnataka students. The decision has been taken following the poor turnout for these courses last year. The All-India Council for Technical Education had earlier made CMAT mandatory to pursue these masters. But not many applied for the exam and around 60% of seats had fallen vacant.

There are around 200 colleges of which 22 are government run offering these courses. Around 25,000 seats are up for grabs. Half of them fall under government quota. There are around 12,000 MCA seats in the country. Around 18,000 students appear for PGCET every year. Posted By: Best Education Hub

Program to train 250,000 teachers worldwide over the next 10 years

DUBAI: Around 250,000 teachers across the world will be trained over the next 10 years by a UAE-based organisation and philanthropic arm of an NRI-led international education company here.

Under the agreement, the philanthropic arm of GEMS Education, the Varkey GEMS Foundation (VGF), and the UAE-based philanthropic organisation, Dubai Cares, will launch a country-based teacher-training intervention that will boost the standard of classroom teaching.

The agreement was signed at the Global Education and Skills Forum, the foremost gathering on education and education policy held here from March 15-17.

According to UNESCO, around 57 million primary school-aged children are out of school along with more than 71 million lower-secondary school-aged children.

And for those children who do attend a school in the developing world, a lack of trained teachers often acts as a barrier to learning.

"Through the implementation of integrated, impactful, evidence-based and sustainable primary education programs by forging strategic partnerships such as this, Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Cares, said.

"We aim to create positive impact in the lives of underprivileged children globally, their families, communities and economies," he said.

An estimated 7 million new teachers will be needed over the next two decades to serve the growing global population.

Tough questions? Smashing answers!

A post-presentation question-answer session is the litmus test of a good presenter — while anyone can repeat what's been rehearsed, only a thoroughly prepared presenter can successfully handle questions. Many believe questions are disguised aggression or tests. In fact, questions are evidence of the audience's engagement! It serves us well to believe each question's a genuine inquiry. The better you answer questions, the better your presentation is judged to have been. 

Here are some steps to navigate Q&As: 

Welcome questions: Acknowledge a questioner's point of view. Even if you don't agree, emphasize your recognition of the questioner's feelings by saying, "I know that can be frustrating," or "Sure, that sounds contradictory." 

Listen patiently without interrupting: Understand the question and try to find parts to agree with. Then, state your opinion explicitly using data, with sentences like, "On the basis of this information, I have reason to believe that ..." 


Avoid aggressive 'You' phrases: Phrases like "As I already told you" or "You don't realize" don't add value to a Q&A. Instead, try 'I' phrases like: "I believe that" or "In my experience and understanding ..." 

Check if the question's been answered: Always ask, "Does that help clarify your thought?" or "Does that sound reasonable?" If the answer's no, probe areas of disagreement, trying to achieve rational mutual understanding. 

Don't get emotional! Separate fact from feeling — and respond only to facts. Remember, the question is not necessarily about you. Often, aggressive or emotional questions are manifestations of the other person's needs and frustrations. Accepting this respectfully, without personalizing this, and isolating objective parts of an argument can help you both move a discussion to a productive close. 

And that's the best answer to any question. 

Higher education enrolment ratio likely to grow to 30 % by 2020

NEW DELHI: Higher education enrolment ratio in India is likely to grow to 30 per cent by 2020 because of increased investment in the sector and economic growth, a senior official today said.

Higher education secretary Ashok Thakur also said that the government is encouraging engineering colleges, especially IITs, to offer more subjects in humanities so that students have access to social science subjects.

"Enrolment in higher education is likely to grow to 30 per cent by 2020 thanks to increased investment by the government and economic growth," he said at the valedictory session of an international conference on social science research.

The event was organized by Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and International Development Research Center (IDRC), where academic experts and policy makers from south, south east, and East Asian countries unanimously proposed formation of a social science research network acting as an advocacy platform in the region to strengthen research and its funding.

"There is a need to build an interactive platform for research among the developing countries. Although there is a global edge of physical over social sciences, the questions of governance, social and economic tensions and other such concerns have remained under addressed in these nations," said member secretary of ICSSR Ramesh Dadhich.