DL in India

Yes, you're right. My error. I'm so glad to hear India has much bigger scams. Isn't that just what the country needed! :sad: The whole total, including the phony loan and fees for unauthorized courses, is a slight bit more - 208 crore or thereabouts. As you correctly point out, no big thing, in comparison to other scams, but I'd bet 208 crore would buy a quite few of the country's rural villages in toto, of which there are 750,000, many sadly impoverished. Yes, I believe $30 million U.S could certainly buy a few villages , lock stock and subsistence farms included.

Or, that much money could pay off thousands of labour contracts that kids aren't supposed to be signed to, but are. School is free in India, I'm told, but I've read that in many districts, only half the children who should be attending are actually at school, due to labour contract obligations.

I erred in comparing 208 crore to the average income in India. I forgot about the population. When an evil like this is spread over a billion-plus people, the individual impact diminishes to almost nil. What's one more scam? The late Billy Preston summed it up in his hit song - "Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'."

It's all in how you look at it - and in most cases, somebody involved is usually looking the other way.

J.

 

Thanks J - but you missed my sarcasm

 

Yes. Thanks. I honestly did miss it! :shock: I'm pretty thick, so sometimes you really have to be heavy-handed with it! :smile:

J.

 

digitizing the library

I'm picturing a bunch of poor grad students standing in front of scanners doing page after page after page . . .

Digitization of distance learning library in full swin | Freepress Journal

 

That sounds like the modern equivalent of the 'scriptorium' in medieval monasteries, where books were hand-copied. Much faster today, but still drudgery, as Kizmet notes. Electronic scriptoria abound these days. Often, they specialize in dealing with medieval documents. Here's a page from a U. of Calgary presentation.

Images Test

Man, that Brother Anselm in the pic sure has great keyboard chops! :smile:

J.

 

OK, so this seems like a total mess

HRD

 

Indeed. Small wonder that so many from South Asia want to live in N. America. Here we have yet another good reason.

J.

 

UGC continues to try to herd cats

UGC writes to states over deteriorating standards of some distance learning programmes

 

I think that's true. There are "state universities" and apparently they only serve those people in their own state. Period. Then there's IGNOU which is, by definition, a national university and so anyone can attend. If that's the case it's easy to see why DL would mess them up.

 

The so called "Standards" were set a million years ago, when distance education was not dreamt of.

I still fail to understand why a University should have a "Jurisdiction" which is the state boundary. AFAIK, the states does not fund any universities. The universities are either funded by UGC or self-funded. And the concept of an online-course limited to a State in my opinion is totally ridiculous.

UGC need to rethink their "Standards" and make them more in-line with changing times.

 

Maybe something like this?

HRD

 

the good news: high quality management education online

the bad news: synchronous

IIM-A To Offer Online Distance Learning Courses

 

Well, to my mind, one of the main conveniences of DL is being able to study when you want. Having to "be in class" at a certain time could be quite difficult, especially when the classroom is on the other side of the world (I haven't checked the time difference).

 

It's even worse. You have to be actually in-seat, in a real, not virtual, classroom. Their idea of distance ed. is transmitting from studio to classroom. Says so here:

"The institute has signed agreements with both the companies to deliver management education content using electronic mode in the form of synchronous studio-to-classroom programmes"

I'm sure there could be multiple classrooms involved. It's a cluster something-or-other, I guess. :smile:

When they say synchronous - it appears they mean synchronous (same time) - and all students in a specific place - or places. Conterminous, or co-located or something... Not the kind of distance education we normally talk about.

J.

 

Kizmet,

IIMs have been doing this through NIIT and Hughes for a very long time (I know at least since 5 years). The news article might be new, but it has been happening for a while. Most of these courses (executive grad certificates and diplomas) are classroom (synchronous) - so they can be thought of as an "extended campus"
Hughes Education: Executive MBA in India, Online EMBA Programs IIM

They mention some "online" options, but I am not sure if they are available to students outside India.

 

I figured when Kizmet wrote "synchronous" it meant what "synchronous" literally means - "at the same time." I thought students would have to log on to the Internet at given time-slots for lectures - not all be in a classroom in India together. Good school there, I'm sure, but not much good to us here. IIM-A has obviously worked hard to re-define "synchronous." Glad all distance programs in India aren't "the new synchronous." Or maybe with all the flak lately - they are. WHo knows?

In U.S. distance education-speak, "synchronous" usually means courses start/finish on given dates. "Asynchronous" means continuous enrolment - start whenever. Having to be in class at the same time? That's known here as B&M (Bricks and mortar).

σύγχρονος

J.