Sramana then went on to have a look at the opportunities in the Education sector. In her opinion, the education system in India is highly overrated. I, personally, agree with her completely. While we have the IITs, IIMs, BITSs and a few good NITs and other colleges, the higher education industry is not in its best form. And the school level education industry stinks!! Giving up on my temptation to further pursue this debate, let’s move forward with her ideas:
MIT India: An idea for an Engineering School Franchise. India needs a huge number of engineers. And good engineering students make good teachers as well. In India, outside of a few premier institutions, the people who teach are themselves no good at the subjects. It’s a blind-leading-the-blind problem. And it’s not only India, but pretty much universal. Maybe if teaching could be made more attractive as a profession… A similar suggestion is a Medical School Franchise: Harvard Medical School India.
Then there was an idea about a knowledge base for teachers to consult: Lucid. The ideology is to implement central planning on pedagogical techniques. Speaking from my own experience, this is an excellent idea, and has quite a few players in the market. I had the opportunity to work with one of them , and believe me, this is going to go places.
Talking about sensible ideas, edutainment takes the cake. Sramana suggests coming up with educational games that are addictive as well. WOW!! For once parents and teachers will be worried if their child is NOT hooked on to the game. This is truly a million-dollar idea, and I never use this expression loosely. All one needs to do, in Sramana’s words, is to understand “The Psychology of Addiction” (Expression of the day).
If you thought Social Networking was old hat, meet Educational entrepreneur Edward Fields. His initiative, Hotchalk, aims to provide support through social networking between parents, teachers and students. Community and Content!
