How TCS, Infosys and Wipro can Disrupt the Indian Education Market

It is college admission time and we are outraged (again) as various Indian colleges announce their cut-off levels. A few at the Delhi University are at 100% and most are above 90%. So we will rant for a while, and like our friend Ali Haider sang many years ago say, "Yahan ka system hi hai kharab!" 

Why is the cut-off at 98% or 100%? Obviously, these colleges have received applications from a sufficient number of students with those marks - else why would they create an artificial entry barrier. Earlier, these colleges didn't have such high thresholds for entry, as confirmed by a celebrity media anchor (rather modestly): 


So why have the cut-offs crept up? 

Maybe the kids are getting brighter - they have many more avenues to learn from and are therefore, smarter than ever before. Perhaps the exams are getting easier, in an attempt to make education easier and more inclusive. Whatever the reason might be, we now have a greater demand from youngsters who have scored high marks in their school exams and are seeking higher education amongst the top Indian colleges. 

How can a large and increasing demand be a problem? Under normal market circumstances, more demand is good. But in education, we don't have a normal market. While there are many colleges (supply), the problem is that there are just not enough good quality ones. Due to various regulations and controls, only the politically connected or the unscrupulous seem to be investing in expanding education facilities. The situation is so bad that many folks who have young children are wondering how much they have to save every month if they had to send their children for studies overseas.

Given that education is so fundamental to our thinking and the choices we make, I believe that no government - irrespective of ideology - will give up control . So is there no way out? 

The answer could be IIN. 

Is that a joke!? Wait, before you fall off your chair... here's what I mean... let us consider the IIN concept (as shown in the ads) - that you don't necessarily need to go to a formal college to learn the skills that are required to succeed in life. There are several, emerging options - many enabled by technology - which can substitute formal college education... it's just that you will not get the degree.

And it is the degree granting authority of the universities / colleges that give them the power, why they are in so much demand. The degree matters, partly for the social recognition (remember that photo with a funny hat and gown), but mostly because the job market demands a degree, creating yet another entry barrier. Rarely do you come across a job that is not qualified by the degree that is necessary for it. So you see that the limited or controlled access that begins at high school continues all the way to the job market.

But, WHAT IF, what if some large company came forward and said, you know what - these degrees don't matter much. Most of what you learn in college for 3-4 years is outdated or not connected to the job. We will test you on basic aptitude, specific skills and attitudes; we will anyway train you for a while to get you up to speed. WHAT IF a few other companies followed suit. WHAT IF the degree was no longer an entry barrier or gatekeeper to the job market. 

So here's my disruption scenario (and I wish Idea Cellular had actually, publicly played this out)... one or more corporates build institutes (or portals) of learning and certification but not degree granting. Anyone above a certain age is eligible to join based on an aptitude test, irrespective of how much they scored in any school exam (or whether they went to a school or not!). Since there is no degree, no government or university approval is required. They offer to hire all those who qualify through the programs. Soon, other corporates seeking to tap into this qualified talent pool would make competing offers to these students or set up their own such institutes. Or, as is more likely, entrepreneurs will create a mix of online/offline models of certification (think MOOC++) on the basis of demand from these corporates.

Is this feasible? I think so... there are many IT services companies which (each) hire thousands of "engineers" and then put them through months of training. What if TCS, Infosys and Wipro that hire over 50,000-70,000 freshers annually said that in 2016, 25% of our entry level hires will not require any degree, just the appropriate skills? I can tell you, just like the IIT coaching cottage industry bloomed, we will have private tutors, entrepreneurs and portals coaching young people for the job interviews. Five years ago, I wrote briefly about the need for corporates to do something about it... it's still not too late.


One might argue that this is a very materialistic view of education; there's more to it than just getting a job. True, and I am not asking that colleges and degrees be done away with. Just that for a majority of the student body, the primary purpose of education is to enable a livelihood. We need to ensure that their access to the job market through good quality education is not blocked because they haven't scored 98% or their parents cannot afford to send them overseas.

New Business Idea for B-Schools

Recently I realized that the number of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has grown to 13 from about 6 at the turn of the century. And there have been discussions about creating more IIMs, one for every state (that will take the count to 29). I was at an IIM last week chatting with some faculty members and we felt that the biggest constraint (amongst several) in creating these new IIMs will be the absence of good quality faculty.

The number of management PhDs being awarded every year must be rather small, a few dozen I suspect, with probably just a dozen or so coming from the original, more established IIMs. So how do you staff all these new institutes, how do you attract good teachers to move to non-metro / smaller town locations across the country (where the new IIMs are likely to be set up)?

It would be unreasonable to believe that you could suddenly attract many young MBAs to take up a regular PhD program, particularly with its 4-6 year cycle time. At the same time, you cannot teach an MBA program with mostly (corporate) guest faculty who have not received any academic teaching skills. The middle ground could be as follows:

The (first 6) IIMs should create a new 1-year faculty development program aimed at professionals with at least 10 years managerial work experience. Like the Post-graduate Diploma (instead of MBA) that they offer at the graduate level, this could be called the Doctoral Diploma or something similar. This 1-year full time program could consist of a quick overview of the MBA program (like a 3-month management development program), learning and teaching skills (including case teaching methodology), basics of research methodology, a few electives in the chosen area of specialization and an internship (teaching an MBA elective as an under-study). 

Would many professionals be interested in such a program? I don't know for sure but it can be easily tested. It is anecdotal, but there are already many who are teaching on a part-time basis and may be willing to explore full-time teaching positions. Also, even those that are teaching as visiting / guest faculty could benefit significantly from such a program. 

Also, the Government (or the UGC or the IIMs, whoever makes those rules) should treat this Diploma as an entry-level equivalent of a PhD; subsequent promotions / raises should anyway be based on teaching, research and consulting performance.

The best researchers and academicians may still come from the (Indian & overseas) PhDs but this approach will ensure that we have adequate, good quality people standing up to teach the thousands of students who will be signing up at these new IIMs.

More thoughts about the management education space, as I spend more time understanding it, soon.

Cracked the Scene. So?

My friend from school and I met for dinner after a very long time and got chatting about our other friends. He said, you know nobody from our 1993 batch at high-school has really cracked the scene. Is that really true, I countered, somebody had become a Partner at McKinsey, one co-founded a hedge fund at New York, some others were hot-shot investment bankers in India, Singapore and elsewhere and there were others moving up the corporate ladder. Seemed to me that everybody was doing reasonably well. But nothing spectacular, he said. 

Most of us have been working for about 10-11years, assuming that we spent 5-6 years studying further (BE+MBA, in most cases!), and are nearing our mid-thirties. Not bad, I'd say, if I compared this to what our parents' generation might have achieved. But nobody is a CEO of a big company yet. Or a well-known scientist or a management guru. 

You know, I have no idea what the hedge fund founder's kids' names were or what the Singapore I-banker did beyond I-banking... the occasional Facebook update tells me that most of us have put on weight, added new faces to the family photos and took an annual vacation somewhere. Everybody is happy. So it appears. 

If any of us had become the youngest CEO in the history of our companies, would it have made us happier than what we were now? We would have surely cracked the scene, but would it make our 3 or 5-year old kids happier? As CEOs, we might even install Telepresence at home, and meet the family face to face when on the road, more often now. Did we need the additional responsibility of being a CEO just when the responsibility as a parent was beginning to peak? 

Is it really progress (or cracking the scene?) if the envelope of a professional career is shrunk rapidly? Earlier CEOs were typically 50-year olds, now its passe to reach the top in the 40's and the target is to get there before the 40th birthday. So during the most productive years, all attention is focused on professional excellence and "success", with the hope that one can retire early and then enjoy life. But it is difficult to go trekking at the age of 45 when you are under medication for diabetes and hypertension. It is difficult to lift your fifteen year old child and fling her in the air while playing in the garden. So we cracked the scene at work but what about life, in general?

Anaggh Desai tweeted today, "Isn't it surprising that only Head Honchos talk and manage to practice Work - Life Balance?" I believe that though Head Honchos talk a lot about Work-Life Balance (WLB), most don't really practise it. There are very few who have the aptitude as well as an environment conducive to WLB. Balance is usually a euphemism for compromise; and when Head Honchos compromise between Work and Life, it is not difficult to guess which direction the scale typically tilts. 

I read somewhere, very long ago that the best way to plan one's life's goals was to write your own obituary. What would you like your near and dear, at home and at work, to think of you when you are no longer around? What are the first things that you want others to say about you? 

Are our actions today helping us achieve that "end-goal"?

3 Idiots: Dreams and Reality

NOTE: This is an update to my previous post on 3 Idiots. This one, after seeing the movie today.

 

Follow your dreams. 

That's the key message of 3I (and countless other stories)... and obviously, there's nothing wrong with that message.

But what if you cannot follow your dreams. Circumstances don't let you. What does one do? There are few in this world who are like Rancho (not Aamir Khan, mind you) - inherently brilliant, good-natured and attractive - who are also provided the opportunity to follow their dreams. Remember, it is Mr. Shyamaldas Chanjad who sees Rancho through school and college for his own selfish motive. And unlike Raju Rastogi, Rancho does not have a family of three, surviving on Rs 2500 per month, hoping that their son will get a job and sustain the family's livelihood. 

Every dream clashes with reality, in some way, else it wouldn't be a "dream". Everyone has to make choices, day in and day out, about balancing the two. And given the ephemeral nature of dreams, they can change from time to time, just like reality will. Are we awake to such shifts, are we flexible to adapt to circumstances?

The flaw with 3I (amongst many others that I will not get into here because this is not a movie review) is that it seeks to use a broad brush in favour of the dream-way. With Aamir-can-do-no-wrong-Khan in the lead, all others are reduced to being caricatures. And eventually, all of them bow to the only way of the only master. 

Jahapanaah, Tussi Great Ho!

 

PS: I was shocked at the 'pissing on a live wire' episodes, presented as cool stunts! This used to be a popular ragging sequence in medical colleges, with very dangerous consequences. I just hope that some stupid kids don't try this out for fun!

3 Idiots: Yahaan ka system hi hai kharab!

I haven't seen 3 Idiots yet... but I have read Sahil's review here to get a good sense of what the movie is about.

I will probably watch it soon because it is the movie of 2009/10 and it's supposed to be a well-made movie... I loved Lage Raho Munnabhai and that's enough reason to watch the next Raju Hirani movie.

But I will go into the movie with a prejudice: I don't agree with the "message" that the education system is completely screwed up. That "formal" learning systems or even learning by rote are to be completely discarded. That our educators/professors/teachers are caricatures to be made fun of. That just creativity, without the rigour of analysis, can solve all problems. 

I will not deny that our education system needs a major overhaul. We need to get more practical and more up-to-date. But that does not mean we kill the system itself. Remember, it is the same system that has produced whatever it has till now. It is the same system that has ensured that India grew at 8% this year when most "developed" countries were reeling with recession. It is the same system that is slowly leading to the flattening of the population pyramid. 

Yes, the ranking system forces unhealthy competitive behaviour amongst children and we need to find ways to make "selection" more rounded and not just limited to "exam results". But, at the end of the day, can we get away from the fact that there will be "selection"? Humans are what they are because of natural selection. We have chosen capitalism as our way of life; to wish that everyone be alike is just a wish.

My daughter is just learning her 2-times table. She often forgets what she learnt "by rote"... but her learning process also taught her that she can add two to the previous answer to get the next one. And so on for the 3-times and 4-times tables. So she is using some creativity to get to the answer when she is stuck. Eventually, it won't matter whether she knows 4X9=36 by rote or by a creative deduction of the answer. She will know it. And she needs to know it. That's the problem with formal education... it is a somewhat painful process when we go through it and it is easy to discredit what we have learnt. But if we hadn't learnt many of those things, where would we be today? 

What the system lacks is the flexibility for people to find their interest areas and to be able to customize their higher education in a way that suits their interests. We are stuck with rigid definitions of education options: Science, Commerce or Arts after the 10th; Engineering, Computers, Commerce, Science or Arts after the 12th... Why not a mix of them? Why can't an Engineering major do a bit of Arts and Commerce to develop other perspectives? Or the other way around...

The problem that I have with these movies (TZP, 3I, MB-MBBS) is that the studious are caricatured as nerds and the creative/dreamy types as studs. The teachers have to be of the worst category possible, except of course if Aamir is the teacher himself. The world needs the engineers, accountants, scientists, managers or other nerdy types as much as it needs the poets, photographers, artists, singers or the filmy types. Remember, the smart alec had the opportunity to come up with the fundoo "pencil, not pen" choice only because several brilliant mathematicians, scientists and engineers at NASA applied a lot of theorems, equations, algebra, design, etc. to build a craft that would take humans to space.

Tomorrow, I will surely enjoy 3 Idiots and all the funny / senti moments and the twists that are promised in the movie. But on Monday, I will also insist that my six-year old learn her 2 to 5 tables by rote. 

Business of Education

Why isn't there a national chain of K12 schools in India? In fact, why aren't there many?

I understand that education in India is for non-profit only but is there even a debate on the topic? And I can't believe that all the politicians who have set up schools in their names have been done out of only good intentions!!

When a manufacturing major decides to set up a mega-plant, it asks the Government for mines and power and other essential raw materials. They look for vertical integration to protect their long term interests. Then why are IT and BPO majors depending purely on Government action to provide them their essential 'raw material'? Every year they are hiring tens of thousands each, yet they have no control over the quality or mindset of the people they employ. No wonder they have to invest in almost recreating their education. The Knowledge Economy is predicated on India churning out sufficient numbers of well qualified youngsters. Note we are not just talking of call center execs or software code writers; the opportunity is in design, animation, law, financial analysis, research, education, management.... almost endless, if only we had the right talent. After years of suffering whimsical and incompetent people, the HRD ministry seems to now have a leader who appears to have his heart and mind in the right place. But can we let India's future: Vision 2020 and beyond, be left to the luck of the political draw?

I hate School on Saturdays!

For my daughter, that is. Her school has been functioning on Saturdays too, for the last 3 weeks and will do so for the next three, to make up for the days lost last month due to the Swine Flu scare. I can understand it if the higher classes were asked to catch up on lost tutoring because they may have external / Board exams in a few months' time. But what is the urgency for kindergarten and primary students to "make up" 6-8 lost days! Making them go to school 6 days in the week is quite painful, both for the kids (and the parents!).

Many of us who are used to a 5-day week find it very difficult and tiring when we have to sometimes work the weekends. Imagine, six-year olds having to do 6 consecutive 6-day weeks: not just school but also homework during all the days! Are we and our schools pushing our children too much, even before the know it, into a never-ending race to achieve more? Just to get closer and closer to nervous break-downs and cardiac ailments, perhaps at a record-breaking under-thirty age... My daughter is not yet complaining, but she doesn't yet know what it will be like in twenty-odd years, if this were to continue!

English is a Funny Language!

My 6-yr old daughter is facing the biggest challenge of her life (so far...): trying to figure out how English words are spelt! English might be the default, global language and all that, but it faces a major disadvantage: it's got the funniest spelling system that can fox the most diligent of learners. Since most of the English words are actually derived from various other languages, Latin, Greek, etc., we end up with almost crazy spellings, replete with silent vowels and consonants!

My daughter just doesn't like learning spellings by rote... she tries to derive the spelling based on how it sounds. Which is how any logical brain must work. So she wrote "beautiful" as "butiful"... unfortunately, English is not a phonetic language, unlike, say, the Indian languages. Words don't spell as they sound. So, you need to "learn" the spellings of words... (this has of course spawned an industry in itself and a national pastime in the US called Spelling Bee)...

Most of us older people who have the excuse of character limit of an SMS or a Twitter message (or actually, sheer laziness!) have created our own version of English that is largely phonetic. All of us have turned on SpellCheck in our word processors and mail programs and don't have a real need to remember spellings. Voice to text conversion software is taking away the need for us to even type or write. 

But, our kids have to learn, by heart, in an unnatural manner, spellings of words that sound very different from how they are taught to pronounce them.

As we heard in Namak Halaal, English is a very funny language!