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UGC Golden Jubilee Lecture Series

Challenges andOpportunities ofGlobalization forHigher Education in India –Alternatives throughe-Education

Prof. Ram Takwale

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The University Grants Commission, an apex body ofhigher education responsible for the coordination,determination and maintenance of standards of universityeducation in India, is celebrating its Golden Jubilee Yearduring 2002-2003. As part of the academic activitiesthe UGC has conducted the ‘Golden Jubilee LectureSeries’ throughout the country by eminent individualswho have excelled in their respective fields and madea mark not only in India but abroad too. These Lectureshave mostly been organized in Universities located inremote areas. The basic concept behind organizingthese Lecture Series was to bring UGC closer tostudents, teachers and intelligentsia in that region. It ishoped that these luminaries including academicians,scientists, social scientists and others, with their richand varied experiences have motivated and enabledthe youth of the country to understand things in betterperspective.

To reach out to a wider audience, the UGC is presentingthese lectures in the form of Golden Jubilee LectureSeries Booklets. I hope students, teachers, educationaladministrators and the general public at large, will benefitfrom the vast repository of knowledge of these achievers.

Arun Nigavekar

Chairman’s ForewordChairman’s Foreword

This lecture wasdelivered by Prof.Ram Takwale atShivaji University,Kolhapur inDecember 2003as part of theUGC’s GoldenJubilee LectureSeries.

The Indian System of higher education is facing today manychallenges arising out of globalization and liberalization.The GATS and WTO agreements, which are likely to besigned by the Indian Government soon, will be effective atleast in the areas of higher education, allowing foreignuniversities to market their education in this country. Use ofInformation Technology in the field of education is eliminatingconcept of jurisdiction of a university, and creating IT enabledfacilities such as distributed classrooms and many otherappliances and applications. This will enable many leadinguniversities from India and abroad, private deemed-to-beuniversities and other providers of education to offer theireducational programs to all students all over India. Thiscreates competition for colleges and universities, and willbe resulting into a threat to the existence and survival ofweaker institutions.

This is also a period of transitional stage for humanity makingtransition from industrial society to information society, anddeveloping new social and economic order. The InformationAge is also recognized as the Knowledge Age; and IndianGovernment and leaders are placing high hopes and goalsof making India a Knowledge Super Power within the nextdecade or two. No country becomes a Super Power, unlesscommon people are developed to the highest level of theircompetencies and capabilities, and empowered throughtools and technologies of the age to enable them to participatein developments taking place all over. This can be achievedonly through a right system of education for all.

The present paper deals with the Indian educational systemwith the approach of facing challenges of globalizationthrough e-Education, and discusses possibilities of usingexisting IT developments in the field of higher education soas to enable it to address many problems. The paper alsoendeavors to suggest creation of a national knowledgenetwork to support weaker institutions, and to offeropportunities to evolve new paradigms of developmentaleducation.

IntroductionIntroduction

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This is also aperiod oftransitional stagefor humanitymaking transitionfrom industrialsociety toinformation society,and developingnew social andeconomic order.

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India has successfully created one of the biggest highereducation systems in the world. Quality of many top institutionsis recognized to be comparable to the best in the world.However, Indian education system faces problems and issuesthat originate from disparities and developmental modelsadopted. With all the impressive development in the areas ofInformation Technology, space science, nuclear technology,oil exploration, industrial production etc., India could not solveits problems of poverty, ignorance and underdevelopmentcompletely and successfully due to various reasons. Nearly25% people are still below poverty line; one-third are illiterateand disparities amongst rich-poor, urban-rural, educated-uneducated are high, which are creating enormous socialtensions. The country has to face challenges of globalizationand pressures of liberalization while continuing its fight againstpoverty, illiteracy and disadvantages.

The major problems before the Indian Higher educationare:

Comodification of Education: Higher education isbecoming a marketing commodity. It is a multi-billon dollarbusiness. Foreign universities are trying to have a shareof Indian educational markets, and have prepared for thisduring the last decade or more. This shift from educationas a social good to marketable commodity is against theIndian culture, and sufferers in these changes will be poorand disadvantaged people of India.

Global Competitiveness: The competition will essentiallybe for offering quality education recognized at theInternational level and relevant to the local needs The majorissue is how to raise the quality and standards of Indianeducation and make it globally competitive, locally relevantand enable it to offer marketing paradigm appropriate fordeveloping societies.

Concerns of weaker institutions: High disparities ineducational standards and quality of education offered byIndian universities and colleges is of great concern to all.National and global competition may create problems of

The major issueand challenge is touse IT and evolve anew system ofeducation that mayenable educationalinstitutions todevelop appropriateparadigms ofdevelopment andeducation, and toincrease coverageby serving largernumbers so as tomove towardseducation for all soessential forknowledge-basedsociety.

Problems and Issues faced byIndian Educational SystemProblems and Issues faced byIndian Educational System

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survival of weaker universi t ies and col leges.

Developmental disparities and unsolved Indianproblems: Many colleges and universities were started inIndia for removing regional imbalances and for supportingeducation of weaker and disadvantaged classes, particularlyof women. These institutions and other developmentalprograms for weaker classes are still facing resourceconstraints, which are further aggravated by ignorance,poverty and disadvantages of the people they serve. Thisis resulting in widening divides and in keeping manyeducated from weaker and disadvantages sections outsidethe job and employment markets. The challenge of thesemarginalized and deprived to the system of education isenormous.

Weak linkage of education with developmentalprocesses is creating frustration amongst graduates whenthey find that education is not so useful in employment and in work situations. A challenge is to transform the systemfrom its present model of education to developmentaleducation linking education to developments in society,industry and services sectors.

High cost of higher education: The unit cost of traditionaleducation, particularly of professional education, is quitehigh and has gone out of reach of the Indian middle andlower classes. Many private entreprenuers have startededucational institutions for offering creamy courses withmarketing approach; and have raised fees not affordableto majority. Subsidy to the education by the state is not theright solution in the present situation, when numbers aspiringfor higher education is large and ever increasing. Thedeprived are already creating pressure on the state to makeeducation accessible; and have raised an issue of socio-economic equity and justice. The issue has already become extremely volatile in some states like Maharashtra.

More of the same will not offer a way out. The major issueand challenge is to use IT and evolve a new system ofeducation that may enable educational institutions to developappropriate paradigms of development and education, andto increase coverage by serving larger numbers so as to movetowards education for all so essential for knowledge-basedsociety.

Human society has seen two major transitions; one fromtribal society to agrarian society and the other from agrariansociety to industrial society. The driving forces for transformationare in each case different; for the first transition it is theknowledge of nature about sowing seeds & growing plantsand tools and techniques necessary for agriculture. Theagrarian society used animal power for doing agriculture andensuring its security. The second transition came up with theevolution and use of auto-machine (the driving force) andcreated industrial society. The third transformation hasbegun since 1995, with extensive use of Internet accelerateddevelopment and growth of Information Technology. TheInformation Communication Technology (ICT) is the drivingforce for this transition, and is transforming rather, very rapidly,the way we communicate, work, entertain, organize etc. In allthese changes now taking place in diversity of processesused in industrial society, one key process stands out uniquely;the convergence of communication technologies, integratingcomputing, tele-communicating and broadcasting sciences.

Development and progress in Information Technology (IT)has created global communication networks and generatedglobalization. Forces responsible for globalization andliberalizations are:

Globalised markets being made available due to varioustechnology developments and high speed communications.

New ways of work and wealth generation by creatingnew IT based appliances and applications and IT Enabledservices, which are essentially dependent on knowledgeand intellectual skills rather than physical and capitalresources.

Intellectual property creation is changing concepts ofwealth and power of a society or nation.

All these factors have given education as the means foracquisition of knowledge a higher and center stage role inall processes of l iving, working and developing.

A society like Indian society, which has given great respectand reverence to knowledge and teachers will obviously stand

Transitions and Driving Forces for Globalization

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Transitions and Driving Forces for Globalization

IT is not just atechnology, nor is itmerely a newenabling tool foreconomics andeducation. Rather itwill lay basis for awhole new globalcivilization in whichIndian values andwisdom will play adefining role”.

to benefit in the new knowledge based era. This expectationalong with the powerful nature of IT is expressed in the Reportof ‘National Task Force on Information Technologies(1998), appointed by the Government of India, as follows:

“Information Technology (IT) modernizes the economy, expandsand deepens the possibilities in education, accelerates growth,creates large-scale direct and indirect employment to theeducated youth, and boosts exports. If there is one singletechnology that can be applied right across all sectors oftechnology, all areas of administration, all levels of educationand all types of services, it is Information Technology. Similarly,if there is one technology where India can emerge as a strongglobal player in the foreseeable future, it is IT.

IT is not just a technology, nor is it merely a new enablingtool for economics and education. Rather it will lay basisfor a whole new global civilization in which Indian valuesand wisdom will play a defining role”.

Education is a subsystem of any society and should meetthe aspirations, needs and requirements of the society.Education has, therefore, evolved over the ages.

In Agrarian Age, education was very much at the feet of Guruin the Ashram Schools /Gurukuls. It was very muchpersonalized; and content, level of achievement and objectivesof learning were different for different learners. The teacherdecided methods of teaching and learning; and learnersreceived knowledge from Guru through oral and personalcommunication. Memorization was resorted to since booksor pothi were either not available or were perishable. Theeducation was localized dependent on the teacher expertiseavailable locally; and students had to move to other placesin search of Guru and experts in various fields. The samemethods continued during the early centuries of secondmillennium.

However with the emergence of industrial society, when moremanpower was needed in various trades, production andservice centers, educational institutions started admitting morestudents to fulfill the needs of industrial society. The form ofeducation changed from personalized education to masseducation; and a mechanism of a classroom with a large

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number of students instructed by a teacher/lecturer wasevolved.

A teacher can teach and interact intimately with a group of 5-6 students. When the number goes beyond 12-15, as is usuallyprescribed for tutorial classes, the teacher has to resort todifferent methods of teaching for giving personal attention.Beyond this and particularly when class strength goes beyond25-30 the education becomes a large number education, andpersonal ized attent ion becomes rather dif f icult .

Classroom based education introduced new methods andpractices such as common syllabus, uniform examinations,common achievement levels for passing and grading usuallydecided by the teachers to suit the economy and convenienceof the educational system. In the industrial society, the skillsand competency levels and content were broadly linked withthe needs of the production and service sectors.

The form and structure of educational institution in industrialsociety is often described as the ‘Factory Model’ of education.It uses the books, labs to train simultaneously a large numberof students, and uses a quality assessment mechanism- finalproduct testing / examinations- wherein some pass withgrades/classes and some fail. The education has a form ofmass education, is institutionalized and decided by academia.It is therefore teacher-centric. The education is localized inthe sense that it is available at the local and nearby institutionwith all its advantages and disadvantages. Students have tomove to other institutions, and even go abroad for further andhigher education. The unit cost of higher education is quitehigh; since major expenditure is on salaries/honoraria ofteachers and cost of infrastructure facilities. As education andhigher income in most cases are linked, there is a high pressurein developing societies on places in educational institutions.

India is having one of the largest system of tertiary educationwith more than 300 university level institutions (single anddual mode universities that include central and stateuniversities, deemed- to-be universities, institutions of nationalimportance, open universities), 14 000 colleges, 9 millionstudents and 0.4 million teachers.

The non-formal mode of distance education consisting of 10national and state open universities, nearly 60 DistanceEducation Institutes of traditional universities, together accountfor nearly 20% enrolment. The unit cost of higher educationin open universities is about 50 – 33 % of that of the formaleducation; it is more for professional and technical educationand less for general education. In some cases it is as low as10 %.

The size of the total system appears to be quite large andimpressive, but it covers hardly 6% of the relevant age-group. In order to compare well with the developed countries havingcoverage of about 30-40 %, India has an enormous task ofcreating huge infrastructure, which will require financialresources not affordable to the nation. It is therefore necessaryto evolve some alternative and new way of increasing coverageand for offering more access to a large number of aspiringlearners with less cost.

The single and dual mode universities as well as conventionaluniversities are now using Information CommunicationTechnologies (ICT) for various purposes. This has created anew scenario of modes of education which can be classifiesas follows :

1.Formal Education: Classroom / campus based educationimparted by traditional universities.

2.Non-formal- Open and Distance Education: Offered bysingle mode open universities.

3.Mixed Mode Education: Offered by Distance EducationInstitutions (DEI) of traditional universities by using bothformal and non-formal components of the two modes.

4. ICT Based Convergent Mode: Uses Web Based Education(WBE), Computer Based Education, Center/Classroom

Current Scenario of EducationCurrent Scenario of Education

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Learning processalways take place inthe cognition of anindividual; and isdependent on thepsychomotor andaffectivedevelopment of anindividual beingeducated. Educationis therefore verypersonal process oflearning

Based Education. Some universities are using ICT andInternet extensively in education to supplement the printbased /classroom based mode in formal and/or non-formaleducation.

5. Entirely WBE - E-Education : Uses Internet and WBEextensively so that teaching and learning is almost distributed.

No mode described above is going to be in its pure form,and many educational institutions will be using ICTconveniently to serve their purposes in variety of ways.

It should be noted that learning process always take placein the cognition of an individual; and is dependent on thepsychomotor and affective development of an individual beingeducated. Education is therefore very personal process oflearning. Learner expresses his/her achievements throughthe skills and functionalities acquired, which are very muchdependent on technologies of the Age or tools and techniquesthe society uses. Hence basic and fundamental process oflearning is very personalized and is independent of technologiesand modes of education. However, it needs interactivities withother individuals or learning materials, which are dependenton the technologies of communication of the Age.

One of the key issues is, therefore, to identify the processesand methods of education that are mode and technologyindependent. They could then be followed in the emergingand unknown scenario. Usually the practices in teaching,learning, evaluation and management are guided and dictatedby the form and structure of the educational institution - eithertraditional (classroom based) or open and distance (print andstudy center based). The existing educational institutions aretherefore typical of the 20th Century Industrial Society. Theeducational system are offering education on mass scalewithout giving personalized attention. They will, therefore,need radically different formulation when ICT is usedextensively. In the fast changing scenario covering all aspectsof socio-economic and cultural changes, attempt should bemade to identify invariant educational processes and practicesthat will support education – and relate it to supportdevelopments in living and working places and people in aself-sustainable way.

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Information Technologies are fast changing and might takea decade or two till they get matured when further developmentsin IT have hardly any significance. During this period theeducational system and for that matter any system has to bedesigned to be open to the changes both in IT and socio-economic processes.

The major trend-setting technologies that will affect educationalcommunication between teachers and learners are givenbelow.

Broadband and Mobile Internet: With the emergence ofbroadband and mobile Internet, current efforts by variousInternet Service Providers (ISP) are to connect all cities,towns and villages, and offer Wireless in Local Loop (WLL),Direct to Home (DTH) and other latest technologies to all

Networks are being created by various communication,production, financial and service sectors with a view to offerspeedy, economical and cost-effective products and servicesto customers. For this purpose, building LAN and WAN andcreating sectoral networking – Banking network, railwaybooking network etc- is progressing fast in India. The UGChas also started building Indian Educational Network bylinking all universities and colleges in India.

The last mile problem of Connectivity: In the near future, electronic networks offering 2 Mbps connectivity, basedon Right of Way, by leveraging on existing networks ofISPs and telecom providers are going to come up to providevoice-data-telephony multi-services. The last mile problemwill be solved by offering all available connectivity solutions,namely, dial-up, ISDN, leased line, DSL, cable modem,wireless, etc. ISRO’s Educational Satellite (EduSat)scheduled to be in the Indian sky by the end of 2004 withmore that 50 channels offering ku-band reception andbroadband connectivity all over India will make DTH (Directto Home ) communication a reality.

Networking Architecture is moving from cluster to gridnetworking. The grid computing network is a new

IT DevelopmentIT Development

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Development andprogress of IT andits wider applicationsin all walks of lifeand work will becreating a society, inwhich everyindividual, group,community will belinked throughInternet with others.

advancement in high-performance computing which hasmoved from cluster of multiprocessor server architecture toa network of geographically distributed heterogeneousdesktop, server and storage resources. A state-of-the-artcomputing and network grid will provide for multi-serviceconvergence (data-voice-video) services. It is a distributedserver network connected to every computer.

Software and Personalization Technologies: Developmentof software tools and technologies for various functionalitiesof people and institutions engaged in various pursuits invarious walks of life and work is the basic necessity of theInformation and Knowledge Based society. The IT enablescustomization and hence development of personalizationtechnologies is being given high priority in the IT developmentfor success in any sector of activity.

All these advances in communication technologies offerfantastic possibilities of developing new processes and newways of communications in education. The issues of inclusionof deprived learners due to rural inhabitation, poverty or illiteracyand access to IT (digital divide) are tasks, which need specialattention- political as well as socio-economic. It is howeverconceivable that within this decade, the problems of networkaccess and inclusion of the disadvantaged in India could besolved.

The broadband Internet with grid network enables us tocreate educational programs that could:

Make teaching and learning possible from Anywhere,Anytime,

Link education - learning with life and work related processesand places,

Create National /Regional Grid network of educationalcontent and services, which can flow in the network andsupport the processes of educating- learning, teaching andevaluating- anywhere anytime; and

Enable educators and educational institutions to create newparadigms of education dependent on various developmentalprocesses and models

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Perspective of Networked and Knowledge Based Society:

Development and progress of IT and its wider applications inall walks of life and work will be creating a society, in whichevery individual, group, community will be linked throughInternet with others. People will be using small hand-held andtable-top devices to communicate, access and sendinformation, participate from a distance in talks, seminars,workshops and small/big group activities from a distance. Insuch a networked society, all communications and informationcould be stored some where, which could be accessed, sortedout, analyzed and useful information could be found out.Useful information or knowledge could be utilized for valueaddition or wealth generation. The persons who could finduseful knowledge by using various IT tools and techniques,and could have related functionality to convert that knowledgeinto wealth will be successful in 21st Century. Education hastherefore, to cultivate skills and competencies in using IT toolsand techniques in the networked Globalised context with aview to creating and nurturing innovativeness andentrepreneurship to convert knowledge into wealth. Educationhas to help in identifying and creating work and employmentopportunities that would lead to new types of self-employmentopportunities such as, knowledge workers, information serviceproviders, tools/technique developers, process/system softwaredes igners , deve lopers and implementers e tc .

Main Features of Learning and Education are:

Learning is a personalized process and includesinternalization of knowledge by a learner.

Teaching is a dialogue between a learner and teacher & isbest when it is with one-to-one.

Learning can take place anywhere anytime; one shouldknow how to learn. Learning to learn is a basis of education.

Basic learning and teaching process should be independentof modes of education - formal, non-formal & informal.

Information Communication Technology could assists inensuring personalization of education and increasing intimacyin dialogue between teacher/tutor/expert/guide and learner.

E-Education is used to denote both the shifts from the traditionaland open and distance education to e-content basededucational system in a convergent mode – E-Education inConvergent Mode or Convergent E-Education, which willbe relevant during the transitional period. It is assumed thatthis transition will be complete when broadband Internetconnectivity and IT appliances are available to Anyone,Anywhere, Anytime.

There are mainly two mega paradigm shifts in education.The first is from traditional university to open and distanceeducation (ODE), and the second is from ODE to E-Education.Both the traditional and ODE universities are essentially basedon industrial models of education – offering mass education.The new paradigm of e-education is however of a non-industrialform and should offer personalized education on a massscale (Mass Personalization).

The first transformation – the first paradigm shift - is frominstitution centric localized education to education at the door-step of a learner offering a lot of flexibility in place and paceof learning and choice of courses. The open universitiesdeveloped well-structured pedagogically designed instructionalmaterials, packaged them in the conventional form of coursesand programs, and delivered them through studycenters/workshops with local instructor support; and gave

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IT Enabled Transformation of EducationIT Enabled Transformation of Education

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certification after course-end examinations. Indian openuniversities used Study Center approach to extend educationalservices and support to distant learners. .

A Study Center of a open university is a device of givinglearning /academic support and learning opportunities todistant learners (non full-time students) by replicating or byrenting some of the campus facilities-academic as well asphysical – of a conventional college or university. The DistanceEducation Institution of a traditional university used affiliatedor other university colleges for offering lecturing and labsupport to their distant students, and used the same type ofinstructional materials such as study texts and referencebooks and conducted similar examinations, which werecommon to both the regular and distant students. Hardly any different choice of courses or their combination was offeredto distant learners than that given to the full-time regularstudents, except the freedom not to attend the lectures. Majorcontributions of open universities to education system are itspedagogically well designed instructional materials with contentwritten by renowned teachers and experts. Raising the qualityof instructional materials, and making best of teachers andteaching available at the doorstep of a learner is the greatestcontribution of open universities, and has helped to increasecoverage of students. Increased enrollment of distant learnersat tertiary level and its low unit cost as led the nation to adoptpolicies to increase coverage rate y employing open anddistance education.

However packaging and delivery of the courses is the sameas that of the traditional universities, and hence processessand model of education has on the whole remained the same.

ICT is offering an opportunity of redesigning and developingnew models of education. While considering this shift it isessential to concentrate on the five main processes thatforms main processes of any educational institution.

Educating: Teaching, Learn ing, Evaluat ion ,

Creating Knowledge Resources,

Developing Infrastructure Facilities,

Creating Educational Environment and

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Managing Education

While using IT, the processes have to be designed anddeveloped in such a way that education can successfullyaddress the problems of quality, quantity, equity, access andeven success of large umber of students that Indian educationalsystem is facing.

e-Education is essentially the same education with the samebasic processes of educating, creating, developing andmanaging which are carried out by individuals, institutionsand communities for achieving the goals of education. In theinformation age it is supported by IT enabled and IT drivenprocesses made accessible through IT tools and techniquesto make education globalised, localized and personalized.The outcome of this application of technologies would be ina form of organizations and institutions, which may be quitedistinct and different from the existing institutions.

Networked society will require educational system that will beable to offer educational opportunities to all anywhere, anytime.The IT developments and emerging technologies are ensuringsuch communication. The development processes andactivities now supported by IT are driven by market forcesand wealth they create. India can become Knowledge SuperPower, if it succeeds in offering learning opportunities andnecessary education and support of tools and technologiesto all people of India. E-Education is expected to fulfill thatrole of education for all and simultaneously enable people toaddress many of the issues and concerns faced by the nation..

Any networked society will need.

Network with broadband connectivity linking hardwareand appliances at various places for giving access toanyone, anytime, anywhere.

Software tools, techniques and applications for enablingpeople and groups to communicate with others quiteintimately.

Content needed and shared by groups of people,organizations/institutions, which enables providers to offerservices to users and customers.

One of the common example of network is that of railwayand air travel network, in which content is the information ofplaces, schedules, services etc. that enable one to makereservation from home for travel from any one place to another.With greater ICT use, now trends are to offer services that

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e-Educatione-Education

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would fulfill customer requirements (personalization of services)and ensure customer satisfaction.

Education can now use the networking technologies fordeveloping educat ional system (e- Educat ion).

e-Education System requires the following framework andinfrastructure:

1. Network with latest hardware and technologies alongwith broadband connectivity and grid architecturegiving network access to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

2. Software tools and techniques that enable creation ofdatabases and information flows, offer facilities to learners,teachers and institutions to receive / give personalizededucation on a mass scale.

3. Content in e-formats on a knowledge grid that enablesteachers and students get personalized curriculum ofhigh quality, relevance and utility.

4. Educational delivery system that ensures quality anddevelopmental relevance of educational offerings(Developmental Education) for individual, institutions andcommunity.

5. Quality Assurance and Certification Mechanism tomaintain competitively high and acceptable standards atnational and international levels.

The Framework given above can serve as a national andregional infrastructure to support educational processes ofany provider institution, individual and organization in India.The five basic educational processes identified above couldfind their delivery channels through the e-Education Frameworkfor any educational offerings and their management.

By using all the media of print, audio, video, animation andsimulation, content in e-education can be developed in theformats of :

E-lectures

Multi-media materials in distance education formats.

Interactivity based content out of

Questions & Answers, Seminars, workshops

Assignments & projects done by students

Content output could be stored on servers at various placesin the network.

In formal & non-formal systems, content packaging is donethrough a course of a program, and delivered to a class ofstudents or a group in a college / university. It uses the principle‘one size fits all’ and does not take into account personalbackground, needs & requirements, prior learning &experiences as well as outputs and outcomes essential fora learner to be successful in a life and work situations. It is,therefore, essential to store content in such units that it canallow packaging of various units to suit the learner needs.Such methods and technologies are getting developed in e-Education.

Content Storage- Meta-database

In e-education, content has to be developed and stored insuch a way that a teacher or learner should be able to combinevarious small units or granules of contents (reusable content)with definite learning objectives and outcomes. A granulecould be conceived as the smallest learning or teaching unitwith single definite objective and output /outcome. A granulemay contain a large number of content items, often calledobjects, in the form of texts, pictures, graphs, audio, video,animations and simulation; each one requiring study time ofone to fifteen minutes. Each object could be tagged to reuseit in different contexts and at different levels of learning.

A database could be created in which a large number oflearning objects and granules are created and deposited by

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Content development and deliveryContent development and delivery

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all the teachers and experts (universal content contributions)with tags attached to each object and granule. The tags willenable a search engine to select appropriate objects andgranules to form a syllabus/curriculum needed by a student.This leads to a personalized syllabus for a student.

Database of such a transformed content will be extremelybig- meta-databases- and could be made available andaccessible to all learners and teachers. International normsare getting evolved in developing databases (SCORMcompliance) so that databases could have wider accessibility,transferability and usability.

Content Delivery:

Technologies are essential for offering personalized curriculumto each individual. They are being developed for variouscustomizations. Such Personalization Technologies allowteachers and providers of educations to dynamically recognizethe role and profile of each learner and respond according tothe needs and requirements of a student. A good teacher willformulate a curriculum for the student (personalizedcurriculum) by prescribing learning (Prescriptive Learning)by identifying learning and knowledge gaps; and setting acorrect learning path for the student. This will enable studentto build on whatever is known and achieved earlier and reachthe objects / goals set for him/her in the curriculum. Such alearner-centricity achieved through educational technologieswill ensure success for every student. The e-educationframework and infrastructure through personalizationtechnologies will ensure ‘access and success’ in the field ofeducation.

IT Enabled and IT Driven Education:

Many formal and open universities are at present using IT forfast communication between institution/teachers and students,and for administration of student and teacher activities. Theseare the ‘first generation’ technologies and help providerinstitution to achieve better efficiency, reduce costs and extendoutreach and coverage to larger number of students outsidethe usual jurisdiction of an institution. This may be called ITEnabled education (enabled by 1st Generation Technologies),since it basically does not change the model of education,

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and retains the earlier methods and processes of teaching-learning and evaluation.

Development of Meta-Database with reusable content granulesand packaging of the content to suit individual needs is creatingpersonalization of education enabled only by the use oftechnologies. The learning technologies developed and usedfor learner-centricity and personalized education are termedas ‘second generation’ technologies /4/and offer IT DrivenEducation. They are changing the methods of contentgeneration, content storage, content packaging and contentdelivery and hence offer a new paradigm of education.

With appropriate models of development and delivery it ispossible to employ IT driven education to achieve:

Access and success to all Substantial cost reduction. Quality education for all Just-in-time education. Learner autonomy

The learner autonomy would employ learner freedom indeciding the goals, content and outcomes of education andthe path of development to achieve the goals.

Many of the problems and concerns could be addressedsuccessfully by creating National and Regional e-EducationNetwork with a framework and infrastructure. By promotingteachers, experts, educational managements, industries andsocial and community leaders to use the Network for evolvingvarious developmental models that could addresses theproblems of disparities, underdevelopment and disadvantages.

Many national bodies and organizations have taken initiativeto create infrastructure and facilities to support education invarious ways. Some of the initiatives are listed below.

UGC has taken initiative to create network, which couldconnect all universities and most of colleges in India bycreating network and by offering resources for developingIT infrastructure in universities and colleges. UGC hasalso undertaken a program of e-content creation anddevelopment of guidelines and program, which will enablestudents to take courses or degree/diploma from morethan one university. Universities, jointly in partnership, canoffer courses and certification.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is developingan EduSat with more than 50 channels with ku-bandtransmission. EduSat will have footprint on all over Indiaand will be launched around December 2004 or beginningof 2005. ISRO has already started pilot projects to createdistributed classroom, e-content and educationalapplications in three states: MP, Maharashtra and Karnataka.The pilot program in YCMOU at Nashik aims at creatingnetwork of distributed classrooms with teaching end atNashik and receiving rooms at about 100 places inMaharashtra.

IGNOU is having a national TV channel for education, andis going to have about 5 more channels to support higherand school education as well as agriculture education.

Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation (MKCL www.mkcl.org,www.parivartan.net) in Maharashtra has established anetwork of about 3500 network access centers, whichcovers 330 blocks out of the total of 360 in the state,Network uses e-governance, works entirely on paperlessenvironment and has enrolled half million students within

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Existing Efforts in Networking andInfrastructure DevelopmentsExisting Efforts in Networking andInfrastructure Developments

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15 months period. MKCL is also developing software fordigital college and digital university, learning /content /delivery management systems and is engaged in developinge-assessment and accreditation system in partnership withNAAC.

All these efforts could be integrated and a national networkcould be built by providing direction of development andsupport for infrastructure.

Development and extensive use of network would enable toincorporate enabling functionality and related values in theprograms of the learning social groups and organizationsusing the Framework. Networking enables convergences ofservices offered by various providers. One obvious impactwill be the convergence of modes of education. Formal andnonformal institutions – traditional universities and openuniversities- will be using distributed classrooms and distanceeducation technologies for reaching out to a distant learners.Networking and extensive use of IT enables:

Integration & ConvergenceGlobalization

Decentralization and localization. Personalization Transparency and openness.

Omnipresence of information and knowledge.If these principles could be incorporated in the design anddevelopment of IT enabled and IT driven process of socialmobilization and organizations, the nature and character ofthe emerging society could be different.Such a system can promote culture of participatory democraticdecentralization, accountability and local relevance and helpin efforts for total development of a locality and localcommunity.

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New Age New EducationNew Age New Education

Distinction between formal, non-formal and informal educationwill disappear once transition to IT Driven education is completeand the process may take a decade or two.

Paradigm Shift in education is essentially

Learning – Teaching - EvaluationFrom TeachingFrom ClassroomFrom Learning from a teacher

From Content Learning

From Course Content

From Examinations

Educational ManagementFrom EducationFrom Whole Time educationFrom Campus educationFrom Campus EnvironmentFrom a Single Institution

From Mass education

ToToTo

To

To

To

ToToToToTo

To

Distributed and group TeachingDistributed ClassroomLearning from Resources, groupof teachers /experts andthrough Interactivities.Objectives and OutcomeOriented LearningGranulated Object BasedContent forming - MetaDatabaseContinuous Formative andSummative Evaluation.

Development Education.Just-In-Time EducationDistributed EducationVirtual Educational EnvironmentConsortia of Institutions /Distributed Institutions / VirtualOrganizationsPersonalized Mass Education

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New Age New Organizations-Virtual UniversitiesNew Age New Organizations-Virtual Universities

During the last few years, many universities and colleges aregetting ready to face the impact of globalization and emergingcompetition in marketing education by forming consortia ofcolleges and universities. The major approach employed isto partner with other colleges and universities and to offer thebest available educational expertise, courses and services tostudents both on-campus and off-campus. This is also aimedat survival of small institutions against the competition fromthe big ones; and is using first generation technologies. Manycolleges and universities have formed partnerships- virtualuniversities- by using essentially ‘first generation technologies’for becoming competitive and earning resources to supporttheir institutional development.

The Concept of a Vi r tual Univers i ty :The concept of a virtual university is of a consortiumof institutions, enabled by appropriate ICTapplications, working together in practical ways toplan programmes, develop the required content andensure the delivery of those programmes and supportservices to learners.

Three features of the university need to be underscored:

The virtual university is not being proposed as a universityin the conventional single institutional sense. It will, in fact, be a “virtual organization.”

The virtual university will carry out its functions by optimizing ICT applications, particularly those that enablethe creation and deployment of content databases basedon learning objects and granules..

The virtual university will be as much concerned with “adding value” to conventional on-campus instruction asit is with serving learners at a distance.

It is therefore a bold and challenging vision of a virtual universitythat has the promise of enabling the consortium of memberinstitutions to become leaders in development of educationmodels that can be tailored to the realities of the learners theyserve.

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The virtual university is a concept at the initial stage ofdevelopment and operations, and offers an opportunity toradically transform the existing models and practices education.Education can now be made central to all the humandevelopmental activities by developing radically differentparadigms of education.

New organizations appropriate for 21st century are gettingdeveloped; and Virtual University for Semi-Arid Tropics(VUSAT) by ICRISAT, Hyderabad and MS SwaminathanFoundation, Chennai, Virtual University for MaharashtraAgrarian Prosperity (VUMAP) by Agriculture Department,Government of Maharashtra, Virtual University for Trade inKerala and MS Swaminathan Foundation’s Virtual Universityfor Food Security are some initiative at their initial stages ofdevelopment. Virtual universities use broadband connectivityand second generation technologies.

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By employing IT expertise and experiences of IT industry andIT educational institutions, it is possible to design the Nationale-Educational Network prescribed earlier that would supportall universities, colleges, teachers and learners in their pursuitof knowledge and development.

Development of such a network would create infrastructureand framework, which could help weaker and disadvantagedcolleges & universities to join regional/national consortia andoffer best educational services to their local students byoffering personalized services.

The major components of the National Network will be: -

1. National educational network connecting all institutionsand their classrooms through broadband connectivity.

2. Indian Knowledge Grid to enable content to flow to anyoneanywhere and anytime.

3. Granulated Object Based Content in a Meta-database

4. Promotion of national and region level consortia ofcolleges and universities

5. National quality assurance and accreditationmechanism.

6. National and regional credit banking and certificationmechanism for students to take education from differentuniversities/colleges,

7. Movement for giving services to weaker anddisadvantaged for ensuring quality, justice and qualityfor all..

8. Promotion of public-private partnership for creatingself-employment for graduates in various fields of humanactivities.

Such a National e-Education Network could help in addressingthe problems and concerns listed at the beginning.

Evolving National e-Educational NetworkEvolving National e-Educational Network

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Since independence India is struggling to evolve its IndianNational System of Education, which is capable of addressing the issues of quantity, quality and access & success on thebasis of Indian culture, heritage and value system. The National/Regional e-Education Networks will enable the Indianeducationists to evolve new models of education that canshape emerging new society; and new strategies in ‘marketing’of education with developmental models appropriate to thedeveloping society.

National and social objective of the e-education in a developingsociety has to fulfill aspirations of the people and nation and to address the age-old problems of poverty, ignorance,underdevelopment and disadvantages. If the education systemis given right framework and national infrastructure, it canhave a great opportunity to come up to the center stage inevery activity of human endeavor and give academic leadershipin a knowledge-based society. The crucial test lies in addressingage-old problems successfully by mobilizing common peopleand creating learning communities to achieve Antyodaya (upliftment of the lowest) with equity and justice. This is anopportunity to build a New Indian Education System and newsociety obtained only once in a millennium.

References:

1. R A Mashelkar: ‘Economics of Education’ – A globalperspective; 16th Dr. C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture,January 14, 1999, India International Center, New Delhi.

2. Ram Takwale: ICT Networking for Teacher Education:Presentation at the South Asian Workshop on Networkingand Collaborative Education organized by UNESCO-IGNOU Chair , 21 August 2001, New Delhi .

3. Ram Takwale; Presidential Address on ‘Convergence ofEducational Modes – An Opportunity for Evolving NewParadigm of Education’ at the IDEA 2002 Conference heldat University of Jammu, Jammu, during 1-3 March 2002:

4. Massood Zarrabian: The Learning Market: It’s AboutLearner, Not the Instructor! http;//elearning.org.

Concluding RemarksConcluding Remarks

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5. Glen Farrell, a study team leader and Editor; TheDevelopment of Virtual Education: A global perspective; Report by Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, Canada(1999).

6. Glen Farrell, a study team leader and Editor; The ChangingFaces of Virtual Education: Report by Commonwealth ofLearning, Vancouver, Canada (1999).

Professor Ram Takwale is an Emeritus Professor in the Universityof Pune and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University,Nashik; and Chairman of National Assessment and AccreditationCouncil (NAAC), Bangalore and consultant in open and distanceeducation.

Ram Takwale has come-up from rural background and is thefirst graduate from a small village Hargude (Purandhar) in Punedistrict. Born in April 1933, he had his school education in villagesHargude & Parinche, and in Saswad and Pune; higher educationin Fergusson College and Pune University and Ph.D. fromMoscow State University. He has taught Physics at FergussonCollege and Pune University, Pune. His teaching and researchinterests shifted from theoretical physics to studies & developmentin education during the later part of his career.

Ram Takwale was vice-chancellor of three Universities: PuneUniversity, Pune (1978-84), Yashwantrao Chavan MaharashtraOpen University, Nashik (1989-95) and Indira Gandhi NationalOpen University, New Delhi (1995-98).

Ram Takwale developed a new model of a state open universityresponsive to the needs of the state by developing teaching-learning models useful for work-place based learning. Hiscontributions include development of open and distance educationsystem, work-place based training and education through distancemode, introduction of courses for farmers, industry workers andschool dropouts through open learning, change in IGNOU fromits print based mode to electronic media, development of theOPENET programme, introduction of extension education inopen university system, M Phil. and Ph D programme in YCMOUand IGNOU and development of National Action Plan for primaryteachers’ in-service training.

Ram Takwale was associated with many national and internationalorganizations and bodies. He was President of the Associationof Indian Universities (1994), President of Asian Association ofOpen Universities (1995-98), Founder Member and the Presidentof the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences (1994-95). He is closelyassociated with the Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver,

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ProfileDr Ram TakwaleProfileDr Ram Takwale

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Canada, through its programmes and was a member of the CoLReview Committee & Regional Advisor (South Asia) to thePresident of CoL. He was also associated in various capacitieswith the Association of Commonwealth Universities, InternationalCouncil for Distance Education and many committees and bodiesat the national and international level.

One of Dr. Takwale’s life-long concerns is to extend educationto help develop people, particularly in the scenario of diversity,disparity, deprivation and large numbers. His contributionsinclude promotion and development of a concept of massuniversity, use of open and distance education in technical &vocational education for less-educated or illiterate, developmentof extension education in open university system and large-scaletraining and education of workers, farmers and villagers anddevelopment of a system of networked resource based education.

Dr. Takwale was also the Chairman of the Committee appointedby the Department of Higher and Technical Education,Government of Maharashtra, for IT use in Higher and TechnicalEducation in Maharashtra. He is now the Director of theMaharashtra Knowledge Corporation founded recently by theGovernment of Maharashtra.

The UK Open University, the first and pioneering open universityin the world, honored him on 30 June 1999 by conferring honoraryDoctorate degree on him for his contributions in open and distanceeducation.

Commonwealth of Learning honored Dr. Takwale by conferringHonorary Fellowship of COL on 1 August 2002 in the DarbanConference, South Africa in the International Conference ofCommonwealth countries, and he was the only recipient fromIndia.

Dr. Takwale was honoured by the University of Pune by conferringthe honour of ‘Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar’ for 2002, by YCMOUwith Dnyandeep Puraskar for his work in Open & DistanceEducation. He has received many other honors such as PurandharGaurav, Vitthal Ramji Shinde Puraskar etc.

Dr. Takwale is the Chairman of the Indian Distance EducationAssociation, Secretary of the Network for EducationalTransformation (NETRA) and Chairman of the MarathaChamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture Sub-

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Contact Address:

Office:1, Bhuvaneswar ColanyOpp. B U Bhandari ShowroomOff Abhimanshri SocietyPashan Road, Pune 411 008IndiaTel : 91-20-589-0802/03/14Fax : 91-20-589 0811

Residence:162/4 A ‘NAVELEE’, Off D P Road,Annapurna Ashirwad HousingSociety,Aundh, Pune 411 007, IndiaTel. Res. 91-20-588 4982E-mail: ramtakwale@eth.net

Committee on Education. He is actively associated with manyvoluntary organizations such as IIE, Vanarai, and is keenlyinterested in developing IT based networked systems forempowerment of people.