Higher Education Forum (India) Third Annual Convention 2012 - Thoughts of Speakers

17.3.2012

Dr. Bhushan Patwardhan emphasized that quality in education is rooted in teachers of quality. Educational institutions have to put in efforts to improve the quality of teachers on a continuous basis instead of lamenting on their disabilities or shortcomings at a particular point in time. Quality teachers is what an educational institution provides to the educational system by providing training and development opportunities and it has to be committed to it.

Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe pointed out the basic logic that academic leaders have to be academicians. Managerial skills scholars have pointed out that managers require three categories of skills, business (administration) conceptual skills, people skills and technical skills. Every manager must have the technical skills of the functions he is managing to a significant extent. It does not mean that he has to be the best in technical skills. Every person with the best technical skills may not have the intelligence to acquire administration and people skills. But that does not mean people with nonacademic backgrounds occupy leadership roles in academic institutions and deliver results in majority of the institutions.

Dr. Helen Bond narrated her experience with use of social media Dr. Sahasrabudhe pointed out that they used Wikipedia. We used Knol at NITIE. We will encourage our students to use blogs now as Knol is being closed. Knol is also a Wikiplatform. Knol functionality is now available on WordPress as Annotum theme. Collaborative writing under your name is possible using Annotum theme.

Mr. S. Nagendran informed the audience a KPO opportunity is now available for correcting answer papers for foreign institutions and universities. Would be interesting for some of us as we can have a first hand experience of the output of foreign universities and it may improve our understanding of where our system is lacking.

Classle.net (Vaidya Nathan) is an interesting platform. May be the access can be made free for the site without registration. The biggest problem now one faces is that he does not know which sites he has registered. So, it is better if sites allow free browsing and of course, if one wants to post something, he certainly needs a registration and identification.

Awardees the HEF Annual Convention 2012