Virtuosity champions e-learning at the National Summit on Quality in Education

Virtuosity champions e-learning at the National Summit on Quality in Education (NSQE)

The prestigious 12th National Summit on Quality in Education organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) was held for the first time in Chennai at the Trade Centre on 23rd and 24th Oct 2009 to give a broader pan-India perspective to school and higher education. The annual summit, themed “Quality Education: Scaleable with Inclusiveness” this year, was marked by the participation of principal players in education and training across the nation and luminaries from Industry, Government and other stake holders in education, who collectively cogitated on solutions to improve access and quality of education at all levels in the country.

India’s educational regimen is tasked with a set of challenges best essayed by a peculiar phenomenon faced by the country today : a short supply of skilled human resource to meet the demand, oversupply of unskilled and partially skilled human resource the demand cannot meet; and an educational infrastructure that can neither meet the quality requirements to correct the shortage of growing need for skilled manpower employable in a global workplace, nor capable to provide even functional literacy to the huge number of students expected to come into the system in the next few years. It is in this critical juncture, that CII through this landmark summit, aptly themed, brought together the best of academic and executive minds in the country to deliberate on the issue and chalk out the best way ahead for the nation in education. . The challenge before India today is to leverage its huge human resource into a skilled resource if it is to realize its potential as a major global player. It has a yeoman task of preparing over 700 million globally employable workforces, comprising 200 million university graduates and 500 vocationally skilled people in the next few years. It calls for the Education sector to improve its quality delivery by multifold, while simultaneously, scale up to

be more inclusive so as to reach out to a larger chunk of the Indian population. Changes in the educational sector have to be effected quickly and seamlessly and with urgency if these goals are to be realized.

Virtuosity, as a premier skill development organization pioneering Technology-aided learning in the Indian Academia shared a place of prominence in this two day education summit. With a vision that says ‘Building a skilled India’,
virtuosity Skill Development shares its élan vital with CII’s Skills Development Initiative of ‘Making India the Skill’s Capital of the World’. Virtuosity’s initiative to pioneer 21st Century education in Indian Academia through Technology-aided learning solutions; and its intrinsic capability to provide highly scalable, inclusive (regardless of geographical, socio-economic and/or personal backgrounds), global quality education- was appreciated at the Summit.
Mr. Shiva Prasath, Managing Director of Virtuosity in his keynote address titled “Education without Boundaries” highlighted the present and future challenges facing Higher Education in India and advocated the vitality and capability of e-learning, making the case for e-learning as the most viable solution to address those challenges.

Expressing concern over the daunting challenges faced by Higher Education which has faced decades of neglect, he pointed out that during the next decade there would be 17 million students needing access to Higher education and the challenge before India lies in increasing access and quality simultaneously. The statistics that he provided on India’s education scenario, with special reference to higher education was an eye-opener. He pointed out that India ranks only 81 in terms of % of GDP spending in education which amounts to 4.1%, of which higher education is allotted only 18%. He further revealed that the Graduate Employability Ratio (GER) of India stands at a meager 11.8% while it is around 25% in developed countries. On challenges on the Scalability front he said there is an estimated shortfall of 45% between seats required and available. On Inclusiveness he said over 170mn students are not receiving higher education today due to inadequate and uneven infrastructure across the country. On Quality he pointed out that only 25% of technical graduates and 10-15% of general graduates are found to be employable in a global workplace. Given these mounting challenges he said the adoption of e-learning as central to India’s education policy gives India the best chance to counter these and emerge as a knowledge superpower.

Echoing similar thoughts of making education in India scalable, qualitative and inclusive, K.N. Shenoy, Chairman of the CII Institute of Quality sought for an appropriate hand-holding for rural India, while Anand Sudarshan, CEO of Manipal pointed out that “demographic divide can become a demographic disaster unless scalability, inclusiveness and excellence are achieved.” Y.S. Rajan, Principal Advisor to CII made an appeal to “leverage technology in a major way to reach out to the masses” but felt connectivity and penetration of technology to be a big hitch. Urgency for skill development was also expressed by M.V. Subbiah, Chairman, National Skills Development Corporation. In the concluding address, N. Kumar Vice-chairman of Sanmar Group was hopeful that education summits will go a long way in bridging the gap between the academia and the industry.

The summit showcased technology and solutions for the education sector, which was brought forth by Virtuosity, Everonn, Educomp, Manipal Education, ebek and NIIT amongst others.

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Education Without Boundaries.

Virtuosity is pioneering Technology-aided Learning Solutions in the Indian Academia, ushering in a new era of globally contemporary, boundary less, anytime anywhere learning opportunities for learners across the country. It is Virtuosity’s credo that the answer to India’s educational challenges and the growing requirements of skilled workforce for India’s knowledge economy, lies in laying the foundation for the emergence of technology-aided learning, taking higher education beyond classrooms, while also enhancing learning experiences within them. Virtuosity is committed to instilling educational excellence at all levels, and thereby develops a skilled community by partnering with academia, industry, government, and other educational organizations.

Virtuosity’s Technology-aided learning solutions achieve Increased Affordability, Accessibility and Quality of Education, in essence: Education without boundaries.

Virtuosity’s Multi-modal and Blended learning solutions, built around the classroom, empower an institution to offer 21st Century learning and skills to its students. The Integrated International Skills Program offers a learning model developed to avoid skill gaps in graduates and make them Global Workforce Ready.

Virtuosity is also a proponent of quality frameworks to be introduced in campuses across the country, through our globally benchmarked Skills Assessments, to assess true learning and skills acquired by students.

Virtuosity is also pioneering a National Skills Bank, the first of its kind, which houses Skills e-Portfolio, with graphical Skills Audits by an automated Skills Map engine for each graduate.

Virtuosity’s exclusive Global Partners, Skillsoft (USA), IKM (USA), Walden Personnel Testing & Training (CAN) are some of the most reputed brands in skills training and testing, and serve a majority of Fortune 500 Corporations around the world.

Virtuosity is set to expand its presence across the country, in its mission to turn the world’s largest workforce into the world’s most skilled.