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13 Sep, 2008, 0811 hrs IST,Ashish Sinha, TNN
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NEW DELHI: The world's biggest experiment ever to recreate Big Bang, continuing underground along the Swiss-French border, has energised Indian nuclear scientists and engineers to the hilt and for the right reasons.
For starters, they put together crucial components to activate the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) much below the sanctioned costs and CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research spearheading the experiment, reacted with a surprise gesture. It left the balance money to finance the visits of Indian scientists to the experiment site and it was more than enough.
The mettle of Indian scientists was such that CERN, otherwise a closed European scientific association with taxing entry standards, granted
Indian scientists had been collaborating with CERN for the LHC experiment since 1991 and over the years, they proved their worth so much so that all precision-made jacks on which the entire machine rests were made in India.
In a sense, the jacks, which can be adjusted to 10-20 micron level, form the very foundation of the collider. Amit Roy, director of the Inter University Accelerator Centre, said the experiments have certainly proved the calibre of the Indian scientific community which is already part of the very best in nuclear physics.
Besides the jacks, nearly 2,000 corrector magnets and circuit breakers were made in
Besides contributing 100 scientists to the effort,
Work on LHC's sequel, the 33-km-long International Linear Collider, amply indicates the high value Indian scientists now command. The global design team for the electron-positron collider, which should be ready for experiment by 2016, wants full-fledged participation of
Besides the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Indian institutions participating in LHC experiment include Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (Indore), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Trombay), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai), Banaras Hindu University, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (Kolkata), and universities of Delhi, Punjab and Jaipur.
Besides re-enacting the big bang at a highly miniature scale, the experiment could solve the mystery of Higgs boson, or 'God particle', understood theoretically to be the basis of all matter as well anti-matter and dark matter.
Only 4-5% of the universe's content is matter and 25% is invisible dark matter. There is no anti-particle or anti-matter in the universe, although it must exist theoretically. As high as 75% of the universe consists of dark energy about which very little is know. The LHC experiment could help scientists solve some of this puzzle, which is directly linked to the eternal question "How we all came into being?"
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http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?leftnm=press&autono=334549 Announcement / Corporate September 16, 2008, 19:11 IST
Project to be executed under the PMSSY; Contract awarded by CPWD
Era Infra Engineering Ltd. through their construction & contracts division has bagged a contract for the construction and upgradation of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) at Banaras Hindu University under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) by Central Public Works Department (CPWD) valuing Rs 52,55,40,558.
The scope of work includes Construction of Trauma Block Building including Water Supply, Sanitary & Internal Electrical Installations etc. The project is scheduled to be completed by May 2010. With this contract, Era Group has successfully bagged contracts worth Rs 280 crore approximately from CPWD since August 2008. Commenting on the contract, Mr. T. D. Arora, Head, Construction & Contracts Division, Era Infra Engineering Limited, said, “CPWD has always shown strong faith in our capabilities to deliver sound infrastructure solutions. Various projects of CPWD bagged by Era Group on a consistent basis are testimony to this. We look forward to deliver the committed standards of performance, quality and time.”
About Era Infra Engineering Limited Era Infra Engineering Limited (EIEL), a flagship company of Era Group. EIEL is a fully integrated infrastructure company participating in India's core infrastructure and construction sectors. The company develops and constructs highways, railways, airports, power and industrial projects, institutions & universities and residential & commercial complexes. More details about the company are available on www.eragroup.co.in.
Additional link
1)Institute of Medical Sciences-BHU http://www.bhu.ac.in/ims/index.html
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August 31st, 2008 - 3:45 pm ICT by IANS -
Lucknow, Aug 31 (IANS) To bring transparency in the examination process, the faculty of science at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has launched a new system under which the answer books, after being checked by the invigilators, will be distributed among the students, officials added. Officials added that in this first-of-its-kind initiative undertaken by a university in the country, results will be declared only after the students express satisfaction over the markings.
“In case any student objects to the marks, the matter will be scrutinized by experts at the department concerned, including the department head,” Prof B.D. Singh, dean of the science faculty told IANS.
“The matter will be sorted out within three days,” he added.
“The system will ensure a fully fair marking system, especially one which addresses common errors like totalling of marks. And adequate checks have also been formulated to prevent misuse of the new system,” Singh added.
“The system will eliminate need for re-evaluation process, which was time consuming and also costly as copies were re-checked mostly by outstation examiners. Besides, students going for re-evaluation wait for months to get the revalued marks,” chairman of curriculum framing committee, Prof K.N. Srivastava told IANS.
For the first time after 1970s, the science faculty has also bid farewell to the annual exam system and has introduced semester system in its B.Sc programme.
“The programme will now comprise of six semesters (two semesters every year), which makes BHU perhaps the only university in the country to have semester-based B.Sc programme,” added Srivatava.
In another unique addition, the maths and biology Group students will no longer study their core streams alone, but will also study ‘ancillary subjects’ from opposite groups.
“The maths students will study biology and biology group students will study maths stream subjects. Five ancillary subjects have been introduced, which will be studied by students of both biology and math Groups from Semester I to V in addition to combination of three core subjects of the main group,” Prof G.S. Yadav, a member of the Committee said.
This will ensure students of both groups have knowledge of all science branches and not only subjects of their choice, he added.
Four compulsory subjects - environmental studies, english, history of science in ancient
“While english has been made compulsory keeping in mind requirements of global job market, environmental science will be taught to comply with Supreme Court’s order making its teaching compulsory in colleges,” added Yadav.
The new system will be applicable only to students who have taken admission in B.Sc programme this academic session.
Additional link
Faculty of Sciences, BHU
http://www.bhu.ac.in/science.htm
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a) Rise in number of girl students at IIT Delhi
http://www.indiaedunews.net/IIT/Rise%5Fin%5Fnumber%5Fof%5Fgirl%5Fstudents%5Fat%5FIIT%5FDelhi%5F5851/
b) Baby IITs born with begging bowl
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080902/jsp/nation/story_9776375.jsp
c) 7% in maths can get you through IIT-JEE
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/7_in_maths_can_get_you_through_IIT-JEE/rssarticleshow/3135701.cms
d) Extra quota seats for others: SC
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080916/jsp/nation/story_9839313.jsp
e) Argul chosen as new suitable place for Orissa IIT
http://www.odishatoday.com/Orissa/Argul_chosen_as_the_new_5487542136-5090908.html
f) PM to kick start work on national institutes in Punjab
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/PM-to-kickstart-work-on-national-institutes-in-Punjab/358286/
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080906/jsp/nation/story_9795630.jsp
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Sept. 5:
The Prime Minister’s top scientific adviser has accused the government of ignoring his concerns as chairman of the standing committee of the IIT council while starting six IITs this year.
The Telegraph had first reported on April 30 C.N.R. Rao’s unhappiness with the government’s expansion plans as he feared the move would dilute the value of India’s top engineering school brand.
The government started the IITs at a time the seven older ones faced a shortage of faculty and resources.
“I feel powerless as the standing committee chairman. My concerns have not been addressed. The post of chairman appears insignificant,” Rao said today over phone from Bangalore.
Rao had first recorded his apprehensions over the expansion plan for the IITs at a meeting of the panel this February.
“The committee recommends that the pace of expansion of the IITs be moderated to preserve the brand,” the minutes of that meeting said.
Today, Rao said his position remained unchanged. Asked if he was contemplating resigning from the committee, Rao said: “I cannot say if I will quit or not, but if I do, I will resign without telling anyone.”
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080828/jsp/frontpage/story_9754383.jsp
CHARU SUDAN KASTURI
New Delhi, Aug. 27: An evaluation error in this year’s IIT Joint Entrance Examination math paper has slipped through undetected, possibly robbing thousands of students of crucial marks.IIT Bombay math professor Kapil Dattatraya Joshi has complained that students who ticked the right answer to a multiple-choice question were denied marks and those who didn’t awarded them.
The question carried four marks — a score capable by itself of taking students to within a mark of the math subject cut-off of five. Only on clearing subject cut-offs are students eligible to be considered for IIT seats.
The results this year also revealed that math scores of around 6,700 general category students selected were separated by just 87 marks — translating into an average of 77 students on every mark between the topper and the last entrant.
For those selected, four marks, on an average, would mean a rank jump of over 300, enough to secure them a more popular stream of engineering than the one offered. Nearly 320,000 students appeared for around 7,500 seats in the IITs this year.
IIT administrators privately conceded they may have erred. Officially, the IITs said it was “too late” to correct the mistake.
“I have received Professor Joshi’s complaint. But it is now too late to do anything. JEE 2008 is over,” N.M. Bhandari, chairman of JEE 2008, told The Telegraph.
The IITs publicly disclosed the model answers to their question papers on the JEE website on August 1, three months after the exam.
Joshi, who has taught at IIT Bombay since 1972 and has helped organise the JEE on several occasions, said he had “almost immediately” written to IIT Roorkee, the organisers of JEE 2008.
“I am not an aggrieved party. Nor am I interested in indicting anyone in particular. I was just shocked to see that such an error had gone undetected. For us at the IITs, the exam means extra work. But for the students who appear, the exam is a gateway to their dreams,” Joshi said from Mumbai.
Despite a rigorous paper-setting procedure, errors have squeezed their way into question papers or in model answers earlier also.
But the errors were “always” identified before the final merit list of successful students was announced, another former JEE chairman said.
In these cases, the IITs rectified their error by awarding marks to all students who had attempted that question.
“This is the first time, to the best of my knowledge, when an error has been detected this late,” the former chairman said.
Two teams of faculty members independently set question papers for the JEE. Within a team, each member is independently expected to solve the entire paper, to identify any errors in the questions or in the model answers. Once any mistakes identified are ironed out, the papers are sealed and sent to the IIT organising the JEE.
The chairman, JEE, then randomly picks one of the two papers drafted. This paper is then sent for printing
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New Delhi, Sept. 12: A central panel tasked with reviewing higher education is considering converting the Indian Institutes of Technology into universities.
The IITs must be converted to help improve the standard of research that is far behind top institutes in the developed world, committee chairman Yash Pal has proposed.
“The IITs are today a little more than undergraduate factories. That needs to change. Transforming them into full- fledged universities is one possible solution, which we are considering,” the former University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman said.
Yash Pal, a physicist, said the proposal had been mooted by him. The proposal is likely to ruffle feathers in the IITs. The tech schools have traditionally maintained a clear distinction from the country’s university system of education, which they consider inferior.Two IIT directors said converting the institutes into universities would destroy them. “This proposal is shocking. The state of India’s university system is appalling. The IITs are better only because we are different,” a director said. The Yash Pal committee was formed by the human resource development ministry in April to review the functioning of the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).Two years ago, the Prime Minister had expressed concern about the quantity and quality of research in the IITs. The concern stems from the inability of the IITs or other engineering colleges to encourage students to pursue research as a career.
Central universities have traditionally recorded a higher fraction of research scholars to undergraduate students than engineering colleges. The most qualified faculty members at these universities are required to guide research students and teach postgraduate students. IIT officials privately conceded that the institutes focused almost all their efforts on undergraduate students. The IT boom in the late 1990s that led to a massive expansion in job offers to engineering graduates contributed to the drift away from research, government officials said. In 2006, 2.3 lakh students graduated from engineering colleges across the country. The same year, just over 1,000 students received PhDs in engineering subjects — a fraction of less than one PhD for every 200 graduates.
The P. Rama Rao committee set up to review the IITs, in its 2004 report said: “Securing employment after a BTech has almost become a cultural feature. The troubling trend has been that a candidate takes to a PhD only when other professional career prospects have been denied to him.”
The proposal ironically comes at a time other engineering institutes and universities are queueing up to be upgraded into IITs.The Yash Pal committee is expected to submit its final report in April 2009.
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| P V Indiresan |
In any selection, two kinds of errors are possible: one, the undeserving are selected; two, the deserving are rejected. The JEE suffers from both kinds of errors. One, the low cut-off lets in many undeserving students; two, the preponderance of candidates from coaching classes denies admission to better candidates who are too poor to afford private coaching. Either error will be large when the selection depends on a single test; both errors can be minimised only with multiple tests.
World-class universities like Harvard and Stanford get 10-11 applications for each available seat. It would appear that the IITs are much better off with their ratio of 70:1. Yet, IITs are unable to select the best because the JEE is mechanistic; Harvard selections have greater depth. Harvard uses tests like SAT, GRE, GMAT for shortlisting only, not as the arbiter for final selection, the way the IITs use the JEE.
The Economist has explained how, in England, many students from poor families rose to the top so long as bright students at the tender age of 11 were identified and taught in prestigious Grammar Schools. Once misguided socialists abolished the system on the ground that it was elitist, poor but bright children lost the opportunity to study in good schools. As a result, in England these days, middle-class children monopolise the top end of all professions. The same is true in India too; bright children from poor families have next to no chance of joining the IITs.
The enormous number of applicants is the problem. It requires hundreds of examiners working in tandem to correct papers. In order to prevent individual bias, questions have to be so set that answers are all in a standard format; answers that demonstrate originality are out. Therefore, the JEE can be mastered by drill; innovative thinking is not necessary. Only when the numbers are small, is there time to ask incisive questions, to separate the truly intelligent from the merely industrious. Two-tier tests have been attempted to prune the numbers. That mechanism is of little use; it merely separates the more industrious from the less industrious and not the intelligent from the industrious.
World-class universities overcome the problem of numbers by shortlisting outstanding schools first and then inviting teachers there to identify a manageable number of promising students. For instance, Stanford will investigate a student from an IIT with much interest, and will not bother about any applicant from a college of less repute. Stanford values the kind of training the student has undergone more than the marks obtained in a mechanical test like GRE.
The IITs would do well to follow Stanford, Harvard and so on. That is, IITs should first identify good schools and let those schools do the shortlisting for them. If the number of candidates entertained from any school is linked to the performance of older students from the same school, the schools will be under pressure to make their recommendations as efficiently as they can. If enough scholarships are offered in those schools for poor but competent students, the selection will also be broad-based; bright children from poor families will have a chance they do not have at present.
In his memorable treatise, Thomas Kuhn explained that the West has dominated science by continuously replacing outdated paradigms with newer and more potent ones. As he demonstrates, the readiness to discard whatever has become ineffective is the essential trait of the true scientist. The IITs have known for years that the JEE is vitiated by coaching classes. Instead of designing a new system matched to the era of coaching classes, it has been trying to preserve as much as possible what it devised 50 years ago. In that respect, the IITs are no better than the manufacturers of the Ambassador car, which too is of the same vintage as the JEE.
The JEE is obsolete. It remains in force because IITs have ceased to be learning systems. The IITs are not learning from their own errors nor are they willing to learn from those that are more successful.
(The writer is the former director of IIT-Madras)
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(Contains comments by Prof. S. N. Upadhyay, Director, IT-BHU)
Excerpts:
Year after year we celebrate September 5 as Teacher's Day - to mark the birth of one of India's most famous teachers, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan - and to honour the teaching profession. But do the teachers join us in celebration? Seems not. There's a general wave of discontent among teachers because of the mismatch between growing expectations and their stagnant salaries. Add to that society's decreasing respect for the profession, and you begin to understand why teachers are such a demoralized lot.
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A student graduates from an Indian Institute of Management with a salary higher than the institute's director. And while the same graduate can look forward to lucrative annual promotions, his/her former teacher is stuck with an annual raise of Rs 450. "There are not many who opt for research in management. Besides, private institutes make far better offers; says a faculty member at an IIM. Adds S N Upadhyay, director, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, "For institutions like ours, which do not get funding like the IITs, the situation is even worse. At present, we have at least 100 posts lying vacant. If the government wants good people to join, the faculty needs to be given better residential facilities and other infrastructure."
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http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200809161431.htm
New Delhi (PTI): The first tribal university of the country, which aims at promoting higher education among the Scheduled Tribes, has started functioning from this session in Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh but sans teachers and a campus of its own.
Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU), the first of its kind dedicated for education and research on tribals, has given admission to 150 students this year. It will offer courses in humanities and commerce.
"We have given admission to about 150 students, including 100 belonging to tribal communities. We are offering Bachelor Degree programmes in anthropology, tourism, political science, geography, history and commerce," IGNTU Vice-Chancellor C D Singh told PTI.
The university, which is yet to have its own Academic Council, has adopted the syllabus of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for the courses.
HRD Minister Arjun Singh had laid the foundation of the university at Amarkantak on April 19 this year. However, the land is yet to be acquired for its campus.
"We have hired a building of an Ashram in Amarkantak where we will conduct classes. Hope we will get the land soon from the state government," the Vice-Chancellor said. A major portion of the land earmarked for the campus comes under forest area. It has not been transferred to the university till date.
The university has started the process of recruiting its registrar and teaching faculty.
Additional link
1)
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M K Sunil Kumar | ENS 11 Sep 2008 02:53:00 AM IST
KOCHI: Taking a `U’ turn from his earlier stand, Cusat Vice-Chancellor Gangan Prathap has written a letter to the State Education Minister to initiate steps to ensure that the funds offered by the Union Government for transforming the university into an Indian Institute Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) is not elapsed.
The frequent changes by the university authorities in this regard had been affecting adversely the prospects of the state for an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
In a covering letter to the representation made by the Cochin University Employees Union demanding the IIEST status for Cusat, he requested the Education Minister to take steps to make sure that the Central Government fund offered to the university is not elapsed as Cusat is facing financial crisis, sources said.
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has offered Rs 500 crore if the university is changed into an IIEST. At a meeting of the committee to look into the administrative and financial implications of transforming Cusat and Bengal Engineering Science University (BESU) into IIESTs, which has Cusat VC as a member, held in New Delhi in June, had decided against changing Cusat into an IIEST.
As only an informal decision was taken in the meeting, there is still chances for receiving the funds, the VC says in his letter.
The syndicate which met in August had passed a resolution commending the Vice-Chancellor for taking a `bold stand’ opposing the move to convert the university into an IIEST. The resolution also says that nothing short of elevating the university to the status of IIT is desirable.
Those opposing the IIEST argue that making the university into IIEST is, in fact, degrading the institution. Once Cusat becomes an IIEST, the research projects and all the branches other than engineering will have to be scrapped.
Even the financial support for the firm will go down.
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Columnists/Rajrishi_Singhal_Doctorate_degree/articleshow/3483430.cms
Academics and eggheads are often the subject of derision and the inspiration for many a gag. A passenger once fainted on the deck of a Mediterranean liner (this is long before the modern version of cruise holidays). The officer on duty immediately shouted: “Is there a doctor on board?” Instantly, four people rushed ahead, but on seeing the patient, shook their heads and wished to be excused. They were doctors all right, but none of them had the requisite medical education. The truth is they were actually doctorates, thereby earning the right to be called a “doctor”, but without the obligation of practising medicine.
Many newspapers across the world have this policy of never using the honorific “doctor” for a person unless he is a qualified medical practitioner. But, humans have this sneaking admiration for people from the medical profession. The desire to be addressed as a doctor runs high among people across the world. It is believed that late gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson, who received an honorary doctorate from the Universal Life Church, often insisted on being addressed as a doctor. And, wherever there’s an unfulfilled human desire, a market always springs up around it, to fill that felt need.
In India too, the desire to earn a doctorate degree runs very high. In the first rush, it was more out of compulsion than fashion. Initially, in the 60s and 70s decades, many pure science and arts graduates went on to do their doctorate degrees because it was better than searching for a job in a non-existent employment market. The economy was moving slower than a tortoise and a stipend earned while pursuing a doctorate provided some degree of cash flow certainty.
Over the years, the number of PhDs in the country soared but the fascination with the degree has still remained.
Politicians have routinely been recipients of honorary DLitt degrees in India. For example, Sonia Gandhi, K Karunanidhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently received honorary doctorates from the University of Madras. Only last year, minister Arjun Singh received an honorary degree from the Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. President Pratibha Patil has been conferred one by Lucknow University. Rail minister and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav got his from Patna University. Surprisingly, universities abroad have always courted controversy when honouring politicians. Oxford University broke with convention “awarding PMs who were Oxford graduates” when the faculty voted against awarding Margaret Thatcher because of her funding cuts for higher education. Many students boycotted the commencement ceremony when George Bush was honoured by Yale University. Interestingly, the administrations of the University of Edinburgh and Massachusetts University at Amherst had to strip Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe of his honorary degrees over the past one year, under pressure from protesting students.
The trend of honorary degrees is not restricted to politicians. Industrialist and chairman-emeritus RPG Group, RP Goenka, received his DLitt from Rajasthan University, late K K Birla got one from Pondicherry University while his grand-nephew Kumar Mangalam Birla was recently honoured with one from Banaras Hindu University, and Ratan Tata got his from the Indian Institute of Technology. The trend has touched even Bollywood’s film producer Yash Chopra and singer Lata Mangeshkar are both proud recipients of honorary degrees. Indian universities have also routinely honoured foreign premiers and leaders. Delhi University recently awarded British Prime Minister Gordon Brown with an honorary doctorate.
But for the rest of the country, it’s a pretty hard grind. For instance, five universities in Tamil Nadu have framed rules that candidates must have minimum 10 years of post-doctoral work, plus compulsory publishing, before they can even be considered for a DSc. The rules for PhD are even stranger. To ensure a minimum quality of academic rigour, most doctorate programmes now require a minimum cut-off at the Masters level. But, given the vastly varying standards across universities, the number of candidates eligible for admission into a doctoral programme virtually constitutes an army. Consequently, for the major part, a PhD programme has become a safe harbour for those without a job or those who want to keep trying incessantly for a civil services job. There is, of course, some quality research being pursued, but it’s really scarce and localised in a handful of universities.
There is an interesting story about this university town in Germany. Whenever the train stopped there, the conductor would walk up and the down the aisle shouting: We are stopping for 30 minutes...go get your doctorate degrees. The town was famous for handing out Doctor of Divinity degrees, literally over-the-counter, to anyone who cared to pay. This pay-per-degree business model holds out excellent promise, especially in India. But the degree needs a new name in India.
How about “Dopy” Doctor of Opportunity?
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We present here some of the scholarly articles about Education in India written by WENR (World Education News & Reviews). WENR is the service by WES (World Education Service), a New York based company which is leader in evaluating educational credential in USA.
http://www.wes.org/ewenr/
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http://www.wes.org/ewenr/08sept/feature.htm
Sustaining the Momentum in Recruiting Indian Students
By Rahul Choudaha, Associate Director (Innovation & Development) at World Education Services. Choudaha is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education (expected completion Oct'08) and holds an MBA in Marketing. Rahul specializes in international student recruitment and technology-based marketing.
India currently sends more students to study in the United States than any other country. In academic year 2006-07 (the last year for which figures are currently available), 83,833 Indian students were enrolled at U.S. institutions of higher education, an increase of 7,330 students compared to the year prior (IIE Open Doors, 2007), representing a robust 9 percent increase. Another way of looking at this growth is that India added an Indonesia in one year in terms of international student enrollments; the total number of students enrolled from Indonesia in 2006-07 was 7,338. Moreover, the net increase in the number of students from the next ten top-sending countries was 6,268, a figure that is still less than the growth in the number of students from India alone.
Recent data from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and the U.S. Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) suggests that growth will continue this year, even if at a slower rate than in recent years. The Embassy numbers, cited by The Chronicle of Higher Education in July, show that student-visa issuances were up 4.5 percent for the months from October to June compared with the same period last year, while the CGS figures show that growth in graduate applications and offers of admissions were both at two percent; a significant slowdown from last year when the rate of growth was 12 and 17 percent respectively. This data helps contextualize the size and contribution of India to the international student body in the United States, and emphasizes how important and effective an India-recruitment strategy should be for international admissions offices.
INDIAN EDUCATION, A BRIEF BACKGROUND
With a population of more than 1 billion people, India is not only a populous country but it is also rich in diversity. For example, in addition to English and Hindi, there are more than 20 regional languages spoken across the country. The Indian system of higher education mirrors the size and diversity of the country. With more than 340 universities and 17,500 colleges, India boasts the world’s largest number of higher-education institutions. Furthermore, there is a great deal of diversity among those institutions; however, while diversity can generally be considered a positive in higher education, Indian institutional diversity often represents inconsistency and incoherence in government policy coupled with variations in quality. This institutional diversity is detrimental to the country and also poses challenges for international admissions officers.
One of the biggest challenges is the Indian three-year undergraduate degree, offered by a majority of universities, which raises issues of equivalency for U.S. graduate admissions offices when assessing the credentials of Indian applicants in comparison to standard U.S four-year undergraduate degrees. According to the findings of a 2006 survey by the Council of Graduate Schools, "International Graduate Admissions, Phase III: Admissions and Enrollment," 45 percent of U.S. admissions officers who completed the survey reported that they accept three-year degrees from countries outside Europe for graduate admissions (versus 56 percent for European three-year degrees); 55 percent reported that they do not. While admissions decisions in the United States are typically made on an institution-by-institution basis, and often case-by-case, the figures from the CGS survey reveal that a majority of U.S. graduate schools do not consider Indian undergraduate degrees as adequately preparing students for U.S. graduate studies. Aside from the obvious difference in length of studies, many admissions officers express concern that three-year degrees afford students little opportunity to take courses in the liberal arts and are more focused on the students' respective disciplines.
Among other challenges faced by U.S. admissions officers when evaluating credentials from the Indian education system, the issue of quality is perhaps paramount. With the rapid expansion of the Indian education system in recent years, there is major concern that while access has increased, there has been less attention paid to improving quality standards. This is especially the case at teaching colleges around the country. While these institutions may have received a license and accreditation from the accrediting bodies of either the All India Council for Technical Education or the University Grants Commission, it is unclear for many what exactly that recognition constitutes. Many observers suspect there is a high level of corruption in the process and are suspicious of the fact that the accrediting agencies are under the purview of government-controlled regulatory bodies.
The focus of the remainder of this article is to present the characteristics of the Indian higher-education market and to propose a holistic recruitment strategy. The Indian student market for U.S. institutions of higher education is discussed at three primary levels — sociocultural, technological, and economic.
More>
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http://www.wes.org/gradeconversionguide/index.asp
(Grade conversion from Indian credential to US credential)
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP