The State of Sourcing

The comparisons between Apple iPad and this $35 ‘still unnamed’ mobile device are so unfair. The online buzz about this new product is almost deafening. Ever since the Indian government announced the launch of the ‘$35 m -device’ (lets call it that, since it does not have a name yet, and this anyway seems to be the most exciting ‘fact’ about it), discussions abound on its viability, price, wasted funds, its not-so-successful predecessors, apps that it can offer and its future. While debate on all of these is justified, some more thoughts:

Why is cost such a big issue?

Continue reading ‘Education at $35… Dreaming big?’ »

In our nationwide survey of ~400 Indian higher education students (for the EDGE report on online assessments), we had some interesting insights w.r.t attitudes about online exams.

Continue reading ‘Do students want to take subjective assessments online?’ »

The Union Human Resource Minister, Kapil Sibal has taken it upon himself to completely overhaul the Indian education system… a good and long-awaited move. The Right to Education Act (RTE) was indeed a major development in the scheme of things. This is another move towards making education universal, as primary education, something that many of us take for granted is actually out of bounds for millions others.

Recently the Minister talked about the need to recruit 2 million teachers to achieve the goals set out by the Act. The other requirement would be more schools… schools where students are actually taught, and not just decrepit buildings. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also expressed a desire to build 6500 ‘model’ schools. This is where the private players come in. That the Government will need help from the private sector to successfully implement RTE, hardly needs an intelligent analysis. What is debatable is – Will the PPP work? How will it work? And how long do we have to wait before it makes an impact? The problem, we cannot afford to lose any more time.

Continue reading ‘How long before PPP bridges the education demand supply gap?’ »

ValueNotes recently completed a study (in association with EDGE Forum) focusing on trends in adoption of exam technology by Indian exam authorities. As part of this initiative by MeritTrac, ValueNotes interviewed 75 key decision makers, including vice chancellors, controllers of exam, registrars and exam board directors. The study also comprised a nationwide survey of another key stakeholder in the education system – the student. This was primarily because the exercise of taking exams online will yield many benefits to the student population.

Vice chancellors we spoke to mentioned that there was a certain amount of reservation expressed by students and therefore adoption was slow. To bridge the perception gap of these university officials and students, we spoke with 400 students from across Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities, studying mostly at graduate and postgraduate levels, with a few inputs from junior college and PhD students. The aim was to capture the students’ awareness, readiness and experiences with online examinations. Even as efforts are under way to make ICT an inherent part of our education system, are the students really ready? We share some of our findings here.

Continue reading ‘Do Indian university students welcome online assessment?’ »

• Schools in West Asia and Gulf will be offering certification from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), with the formal launch of CBSE-I, the international brand of the board.
• The Foreign Education Providers (Regulatory) Bill that will allow foreign universities to open branches in India was recently approved by the cabinet. When this bill becomes a law after approval in the parliament, foreign universities will be able to enter the education market.

The developments in the education space have evinced a lot of interest. The pace at which changes take effect may not alter much with respect to the earlier years. Though if any of these are effective and achieve what they are meant to, India will arrive on the global education scene. The two instances mentioned above tackle two different segments within the education market – K-12 and Higher Education.

Continue reading ‘Indian education: Giant leap to globalization’ »

The growth of technology-enabled learning globally has resulted in hundreds of service providers mushrooming in India in the last 10 years. In 2009, the ValueNotes report ‘e-learning Outsourcing: Advantage India’ estimated over 140 technology-enabled learning providers catering to the corporate, government and education sectors across the world. While these companies primarily focused on international markets for business (US and UK), ValueNotes highlighted the trend towards exploring the domestic corporate and education market.

With the Indian higher education sector undergoing major changes, domestic providers are now offering a variety of services to help educational institutions become more efficient and globally competitive. Technology can benefit these institutes in areas such as course delivery (through e-learning), automation of administrative processes (ERP, etc), and exam management (through online delivery and assessment), among others.

Continue reading ‘Exam Technology Outsourcing: The Indian Higher Education Context’ »

The newspaper and magazine segments are the largest contributors in revenues to the global publishing industry – contributing close to 52% of global publishing revenues. It would therefore be safe to assume that of all the challenges faced by the industry, none would be as altering (in terms of revenues) as the challenges faced by these two segments. The newspaper and magazine segments have already lost considerable revenues on account of dip in ad revenues. This is directly attributable to the global economic slowdown, which has led to decrease in consumer and corporate spending.

Does a drop in revenues merit a need to re-invent the business model? How are publishers coping with the dip in revenues? Will the digital market provide a strong revenue source? Will this mean more outsourcing/offshoring?  Over two posts, I will answer these questions, starting with the newspaper segment.

Continue reading ‘Newspapers: Stop the presses?’ »

This is an oft repeated and clichéd way to refer appearing for and clearing the CAT exams. This time around it was more like ‘belling the ‘clawed’ CAT, where claws = online.

Assessments for admissions to some of India’s most prestigious management institutes, including the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) was mired in a controversy. As the exams moved online, problems hit from day one. Students complained of technical glitches that ranged from passwords not being accepted to screens going blank. Authorities were unavailable to help, and as usual, passed the buck, and as a result, many students are likely to lose out on a year.

I believe it would have been a bigger shock, had all of this passed without a hitch. This is of course not to say that these errors are acceptable. Students completely rely on this to chart the future course of their lives.

Continue reading ‘Belling the CAT-2009’ »

This was the heated discussion that took much of the limelight, at the first ever ‘CLO Summit 09‘ held yesterday at the TISS Convention Center, Mumbai, India. The event saw the attendance of Learning and Development heads of many leading companies across the Indian corporate field (including Novartis, Pepsico, Oracle, L&T, IBM, NIIT, HPCL, ONGC, SBI Life Insurance, BPCL and Aditya Birla Group.), as also some domestic e-learning providers. The Chief Guest, Bhaskar Chatterjee (IAS, Secretary, Dept. of Heavy Ind. & Public Ent., Government of India) set the context for the event, by defining what it means to be a ‘CLO’ at an organisation, and the many roles and characteristics that the title assumes. Panel discussions and audience inputs throughout the rest of the Summit then debated these concepts.

LeapVault’s CEO, Kumaar Bagrodia gave his vision for learning in the future, encompassing the principles of change and innovation for competitive advantage. Panel discussions and presentations by eminent corporate representatives discussed topics such as the role of the CLO and L&D in organizations; learning in public sector and non corporate organizations, learning in multicultural environments and the role of Learning in R&D intensive organisations.

Continue reading ‘CLOs: To appoint or not to appoint?’ »

As you may be aware, following the release of the ValueNotes e-learning offshoring report, we held an executive briefing to discuss the key findings with members of the industry, and also to facilitate Indian e-learning buyer-vendor interactions. The result was phenomenal, as Deepali blogged about earlier.

What we didn’t expect was the great response to the ValueNotes industry presentation, an integral part of the event. Since we’re still getting requests, we thought we should share a few of the slides with interested parties in the Indian e-learning space. And what better place to do so than our blog!

Continue reading ‘e-learning outsourcing 2009: Advantage India’ »