Education in urgent need of overhaul - BUSINESS LINE ARTICLE

AGAIN AND AGAIN IT IS REITERATED THAT ENGLISH PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN CAREER PLANNING.
In yesterday's "Business Line" (16 may 2011), I found the following article.
In our country we are producing 6.5 lakh engineers. Out of this only 25% are suitable for IT and ITES industry. Arts and science college students' plight is still worse. Only 15 % are fit for that industry.
The following is the full article:
The link:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-new-manager/article2021984.ece

Education in urgent need of overhaul

David J. Karl

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India's demographic advantage could well come to nought unless the inadequacies of its education system are addressed at the earliest.

American politicians used the Soviet launch of the Sputnik I satellite on October 4, 1957, to spur massive new investments in technology and education, and some observers say that China and, especially India, are in need of some similar wake-up call.

There is no doubt that both rising powers are enhancing their research-and-development profiles, churning out more scientists and engineers than the US. Yet, the calibre of their graduates is generally poor.

In India's case this reality tends to be obscured by the prominent role of India-born engineering and scientific talent in driving US prosperity and innovation, most prominently in Silicon Valley, as well as the swelling numbers of bright, diligent Indian students enrolled in American universities. For the country to become a true competitive threat, however, it must overcome the stark inadequacies of its educational system. India not only exhibits the lowest educational indicators in the Group of 20, its public-education system scores poorly relative to Brazil, Russia, China and other emerging-market countries.

Half of its children drop out of primary school. Half of the remainder fail to complete high school. Despite recent efforts to improve primary and secondary education, Indian children on average attend school several years fewer than children in many emerging countries. Deep flaws also are evident in the university system. A much smaller proportion of the college-age population is enrolled in some form of tertiary education than is common in other emerging countries. The share is twice as high in China, for example, as it is in India.

Education system in a

state of disrepair

Declaring that the country's “university system is, in many parts, in a state of disrepair,” Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, catalogued the problems in June 2007: “Around 10 per cent of the relevant age group is enrolled in any institute of higher education, as compared to 40 to 50 per cent in most developed economies ... Less than 50 per cent of secondary-school students continue into college education in any form. Almost two-thirds of our universities and 90 per cent of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters. And, most important, there is a nagging fear that university curricula are not synchronised with employment needs.”

Total outlays on the country's higher-education system are much lower than in many other comparable countries, affecting the capacity for teaching and research. Mr Singh's scientific adviser has warned that research from Indian universities is “hitting an all-time low.” Even the research output from the world-renowned Indian Institutes of Technology is slim.

As a result, the country has few institutions of international standing, making it difficult to attract and retain top scholars and researchers. Indian faculty members publish a comparatively fewer research articles in leading international journals.

Incredibly, given the country's high-tech image, the Infosys Science Foundation in 2009 failed to find a worthy recipient for its inaugural prize honouring an Indian researcher in the field of engineering and computer science.

The Journal of the ACM, a leading journal in the computer-science field, has for a number of years not published Indian submissions, finding them lacking in quality.

The quality of graduate education in critical technology fields lags behind the US and Europe. Concerns about the calibre of India's legions of engineering graduates have mired New Delhi's bid for full membership in the Washington Accord, which governs international recognition of foreign engineering degrees. Despite the world-class reputation of India's technology sector, the country manages to produce few Ph.Ds in computer science. Indeed, Israel graduates approximately the same number as India, despite having only 1/160 of India's population.

A senior government official in New Delhi recently acknowledged that India would never become a great power on the basis of such paltry numbers.

Acute skills shortage

Educational deficiencies have led to an acute skills shortage. Although the country mints about 6.5 lakh new engineers a year, a recent McKinsey study reports that only a quarter of its technical graduates and only about 15 per cent of its general college graduates are suited for employment in offshore IT and business-process outsourcing industries, respectively. The rest are lacking in the requisite technical knowledge, English-language capacity and collaborative skills. The report foresees a potential shortfall of 35 lakh IT workers by 2020.

Another official in the Prime Minister's office acknowledges, “The stark reality is that our education system churns out people, but industry does not find them useful.”

This view is echoed by a recent report by a Parliamentary committee, which observes that the employability of graduates from the country's technical schools “remains a matter of serious concern.”

The skills gap also has acute consequences in other fields. A 2009 World Bank report concludes that an acute deficit of civil-engineering skills severely jeopardises the country's growth prospects. The number of civil-engineering graduates from Indian universities must increase three-fold in order to make good on New Delhi's ambitious plans to improve the nation's decrepit infrastructure. To expand the ramshackle energy sector, India has been forced to rely on tens of thousands of Chinese guest workers.

The chairman of the Central Electricity Authority admitted in a recent interview, “We don't have that amount of skilled manpower in the country.”

India's stunning transformation during the past two decades commands world respect, but that should not blind us to its daunting challenges, perhaps none more formidable than in the area of human-capital development. The country's prodigious demographic resources could one day be the basis for India's emergence as a full-fledged global power. For now, though, it remains an open question whether India has the capacity to distil that potential into actual achievement.

Like the US, India requires its own Sputnik moment to jolt it into a higher educational orbit.

(The writer is president of the Asia Strategy Initiative, a Los Angeles-based consultancy.)

From Yale Global

( The New York Times News Service)

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated May 16, 2011)

ENGLISH GIVES YOU 400 % MORE SALARY

THE FEED

(The Foundation on English for Economic development)

A charity initiative

ENGLISH GIVES YOU 400 % MORE SALARY

The following are taken from http://www.timescrest.com/

The full text is available http://www.timescrest.com/

    1. Knowledge of English guarantees a job across sectors.

    2. A majority of F & B (food and beverages) outlets insists that employees speak to customers in fluent and CORRECT English.

   3. Oxford Bookstores claims,” we get a huge numbers of applications and many of them are rejected because candidates are unable to speak in English”.

   4. English does not just get you a job. Growth prospects multiply with this important tool. the difference in salary between equally qualified (non- professional/technical) candidates could be as high as 400 per cent depending on their proficiency in English.

   5. English is the most used language in Indian hospitality sector.

   

 I found interesting material from

Pearson Foundation. this will be, if i am not wrong, very useful for teachers. Please watch the following four videos.

The following is extracts from Pearson Foundation website. The following link will be helpful:

http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/education-leadership/video-series/strong-performers-successful-reformers.html

Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Developed in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education” is an investigative video series documenting policies and programs that local education leaders credit with improving student achievement – success demonstrated by the strong performance of their countries in the latest assessment from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Each story of educational innovation presents concrete solutions that have helped a high-quality education system teach the skills its students need to succeed in an increasingly global, interconnected economy; approaches that have had direct impact on each country’s continued strong performance or improvement in PISA.

The first four films in the series were launched in conjunction with the OECD’s December 2010 release of the latest PISA results. Introduced by Andreas Schleicher, Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division at the OECD’s Directorate for Education, they provide an in-depth look at innovative collaborations among education officials, teachers, and students in Shanghai, China; Ontario, Canada; Poland; and Finland. The collection will be extended as additional country profiles are added to the program’s website throughout 2011.

In addition, the OECD and the Pearson Foundation are making plans to host a series of country-level investigations throughout 2011 in which education leaders will have the opportunity to make use of these videos to share approaches and to learn firsthand from the success of their international counterparts.

The “Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education” series can be viewed online at http://pearsonfoundation.org/oecd. DVD copies may also be obtained directly from the OECD.

http://langconcepts.com/wordpress/docs/ERChar.html

The Characteristics of an Extensive Reading Approach

from Day & Bamford (1998, p. 7-8)

1. Students read as much as possible, perhaps in and definitely out of the classroom.
2. A variety of materials on a wide range of topics is available so as to encourage reading for different reasons and in different ways.
3. Students select what they want to read and have the freedom to stop reading material that fails to interest them.
4. The purposes of reading are usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding. The purposes are determined by the nature of the material and the interests of the student.
5. Reading is its own reward. There are few or no follow-up exercises after reading.
6. Reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the students in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Dictionaries are rarely used while reading because the constant stopping to look up words makes fluent reading difficult.
7. Reading is individual and silent, at the student's own pace, and, outside class, done when and where the student chooses.
8. Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower as students read books and other material they find easily understandable.
9. Teachers orient students to the goals of the program, explain the methodology, keep track of what each student reads, and guide students in getting the most out of the program.
10. The teacher is a role model of a reader for the students -- an active member of the classroom reading community, demonstrating what it means to be a reader and the rewards of being a reader.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS GRADED READERS

Supplementary Reading for Schools

CHILDREN AND READING

English plays a vital role in this age of heightened information and communication. Learners read not only print materials but also from electronic files on the Internet. They read for pleasure as well as for academic purposes. Readers assimilate new information and apply it to contexts they are familiar with and turn it into personal knowledge. The more they read, the more knowledgeable they become. They also become linguistically more competent.

 Why should children read extensively?

1. Reading contributes to the development of listening, speaking and writing skills.

A child who reads extensively is usually a good listener, and a good communicator both in speech and writing.

2. Reading is essential to study the other subjects through English. Because of the increasing importance of English in the modern world, more and more schools are beginning to offer classroom instruction in all subjects through the medium of English. This calls for the ability to read and understand texts on all the subjects in the school curriculum in English.

3. English opens a window to the world of opportunities. Plenty of information targeted at learners at different levels is now available in printed books and on the Internet. In order to gather relevant information, a learner essentially requires efficient reading skills.

4. English is essential for our day-to-day survival. English is the language of operation for most practical purposes in the business world. The product descriptions and user manuals that come with games, gadgets, electronic equipment etc are usually in English. Increasingly, more and more signs, posters and hoardings appear in English. In order to be able to benefit from them, children ought to be able to read and understand them.

What should children read?

Children differ in their food habits. Some like it sweet, some like it sour, some like it hot and sour, and some like it spicy. Similarly children like different kinds of reading materials.

It is important for children to get what they like. Then they eat or read with pleasure. Therefore, it is essential that they have the freedom to choose what they want to eat or read. The reading materials available should therefore offer a wide variety for children to choose from.

What reading materials interest children?

Children like to read books that
• have interesting content
• depict events within their realms of experience
• widen their horizons of knowledge
• promote creativity thinking and problem solving skills
• allow them to fantasize
• have attractive layout and illustrations
• are short enough to be read in a short time

What does Cambridge University Press offer to children?

A wide variety of reading materials for children of different age groups catering to varied tastes and interests.

1. Cambridge Bright Sparks

2. Cambridge Reading

3. Cambridge English Readers

4. New Windmills Series

5. Nelson International Comprehension