The Key Challenges and Challengers for Growth of Higher Education Industry Financing, Regulation, Quality Prof. MJ XavierExecutive Director VIT UniversityEmail: xavier_mj@yahoo.comPresented in theHigher Education Forum Organized by Engineering Watch in Hotel Raintree, Anna Salai, Chennai on March 26, 2015.

Indias Education SystemThe supply-demand gap: By 2020, India will need 40 million university places - an increase of 14 million and 500 million skilled workers. (British Council estimate*)Indias education system is poor in quality and produces functional illiterates. Disconnect between Industry-Academia and the Government Lack of Innovation (After the invention of chalk nothing new has come up) No MOOC, Flipped class room or Blended Learning)Lack of knowledge creation (research)Poor quality (poor imitation of their western counterparts)Over regulated and under managed (UGC, AICTE, MCI, etc.)Shortage of Quality facultyLack of ethics and values among students and faculty (Grade inflation and feed-back inflation)

*http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/understanding_india_report.pdf

Functional Illiteracy The third edition of the National Employability Report, Engineering Graduates - 2014, released by a private employability solutions company, revealed that though 18.33% of the engineers are employable, 18.09% actually get a job.Of the 1.2 lakh candidates surveyed across multiple states91.82% lack programming and algorithm skills71.23% lack soft and cognitive skills 60% lack domain skills 73.63% lack English speaking and comprehension skills 57.96% have poor analytical and quantitative skills.Of the 6 lakh engineers that graduate annually only 18.43% of them are employable for the software engineer-IT services rolejust 3.95% are appropriately trained to be directly deployed on projects. For core jobs in mechanical, electronics/electrical and civil jobs, only a mere 7.49% are employable.TOI, July 15, 2014, Only 18% engineering grads are employable, says survey

The Regulators and the UnregulatedRegulatorsUGCAICTEOthersMedical Council of IndiaDental Council of IndiaIndia Nursing CouncilCouncil of Architecture Bar Council of IndiaPharmacy Council of IndiaIndian Council for Architecture ResearchRehabilitation Council of IndiaCentral Council of HomeopathyCentral Council of Indian MedicineVeterinary Council of India

UnregulatedLanguage TrainingSkill trainingTutorials/CoachingEducation services companiesContent providersCorporate Training

Industry-Institutions-Government (Ideal) IndustryInstituteGovernmentNations Human resources and scientific DevelopmentsExample: John F Kennedys vision of sending a man to moon.

Industry-Institutions-Government (Actual) Picture courtesy, Deamstime.com, pigandrabbit.comIndustryInstituteGovernment

Teaching and Learning Challenges Students want flexibility in the processWhat they learnHow they learnWhen they learnWhere they learnStudent want peer-learning and social media integrationStudents want experiential and activity based learning

Education AdministratorsHow do I get the best out of facultyHow do I motivate them to adopt new methods of teachingHow do I make them do research. (Knowledge creation is critical for growth of HE).

Concerns of the Policy MakersNations growth and prosperity depends on the quality of its Human resources, which in turn depend upon their physical health and education. How do we provide quality education to all?How much money that Government should spend on education?

Einstein on educationI can Google for facts and information. Can class rooms stimulate critical thinking?

Can we reform the exam system?Should everyone go in to engineering education? What about vocational and liberal arts courses? Dream of an IT job in America is not going to work for everybody.

Can we upgrade our teachers on technology?Resistance to introduction of Class-room Capture.

Our MBAs are ArrogantAn MBA from an IIM asked a boat guy in Bihar, "Do you know Biology, Psychology, Geography, Geology or Criminology?" The boat guy said, "No. I don't know any of these." The MBA then said, "What the hell do you know on the face of this Earth? You will die of illiteracy!

The boat guy said nothing.. After a while the boat developed a fault and started sinking. The boatman then asked the MBA, "Do you know Swimology and Escapology from Crocodiology?" The MBA said, "No!" The boat guy replied, "Well, today you will Drownology and Crocodiology will eat your Arseology. I will not Helpology and you will Dieology because of your Badmouthology."

http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com*MBAs Cheat

56% of all MBA students cheat in Exams.

Source: study by the Academy of Management Learning and Education of 5,300 students in the U.S. and Canada

http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com

The Future of the University?Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities wont survive. It is as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Peter Drucker

At a time of great change universities tend to be repositories of historical ideas, museums if you like, rather than think tanks for the future. - Malcolm McIntosh

I wonder at times if we are not like the dinosaurs, looking up at the sky at the approaching comet and wondering whether it has an implication for our future. Frank Rhodes

Alternate ScenariosCommercialized Learning and Knowledge IndustryUnbundlingA commodity marketplaceMergers, acquisitions, hostile takeoversNew learning formatsSocial LearningLearning and education will be responsibility of the respective GovernmentsEverything is provided free of cost to its citizensKnowledge becomes the wealth of the nations

Prof. M J Xavierxavier_mj@yahoo.com

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