Murthy’s idea will cost Indian Government in the tune of $25 bn over five years, an investment that can be better used to set up several top-notch universities and research institutions where Indians currently working abroad can be lured back.
NR Narayana Murthy suggested that India should spend an annual $5 billion to create 10,000 PhDs in American universities with the explicit proviso that none of them will be employed in the US. They have to return home to work on innovative projects and products right here.
While prima facie this seems like a bold idea to unleash thousands of innovators in India, giving a quantum jump the creation of intellectual property, a closer examination shows that this is actually a defeatist solution. Among other things, it concludes that India cannot produce world class PhDs, that the ones produced in the US will become innovative in India merely because they did their stuff under western masters, and that all this expense is worth it for ensuring high quality PhDs.
This is a typical Indian non-solution that essentially says India can’t be reformed, and that we need ideas that bypass our institutional limitations rather than improve them. This is the kind of thinking that got us a Right to Education Act, which essentially forces the 10 percent of reasonably competent privately-run schools to provide education to the underprivileged, instead of focusing on the real issue: how to make state schools deliver by making them accountable.
Full post
Showing posts with label higher education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label higher education. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Monday, 8 February 2016
The ABC of a great LOR
A good letter of recommendation can be a ticket to your college admission abroad. Here’s how you can get it right.
Every year, several students approach me with requests for writing a letter of recommendation (LOR) for them. If a student is known to me personally or if I have taught him/her, I respond positively and invite the student for a personal interview. If a student is not an acquaintance, I politely say, “Sorry, it is not fair on my part to write an LOR for you, as my acquaintance with you is limited.”
A letter of recommendation is a letter written by an academic, administrator, or employer who recommends the applicant for a university study and states how suitable the applicant is for the graduate programme he/she has chosen. Most top colleges and universities abroad require that applicants get LORs from at least three persons, preferably from academics (professors and education supervisors) who have known the applicants long enough and who can write authoritatively about the applicants’ personal qualities, academic achievements and competence. The universities/colleges require that the applicants provide the contact information of the recommenders so that the admission team can contact the recommenders directly via email. Below is a sample from the University of South Florida:
“XYZ has requested that you write a letter of recommendation for admission to a graduate programme at the University of South Florida. By requesting a recommendation through the university’s online application system this applicant has agreed to waive the right to view the recommendation letter that you submit…”
The email communication tells the recommender to maintain confidentiality and not to show the LOR to the candidate or anyone else.
An LOR carries weight and plays an important role in the application screening process. The applicants’ personal qualities, abilities, aptitude, preparedness, research experience, and so on can be known through LORs whereas their other skills (proficiency in the English language and knowledge in the core subjects) can be assessed through standardised tests such as TOEFL, IELTS, GRE and GMAT. Some universities give guidelines to the recommender on what should be focused in the LOR. Here is a sample from San Diego State University:
“Please upload a letter of recommendation. Please include any comments you think important concerning this applicant. We would especially appreciate your comments about (a) the applicant's work prospects; (b) the relevance of graduate work to the applicant's future; and (c) the applicant's intellectual ability and capacity for advanced graduate work.”
In the light of this, it is fair to say that an LOR is a true reflection of an applicant’s self in the form of a letter sent to a university’s admission team for the trust it has placed in the recommender.
For applicants, choosing a good recommender is as important as choosing a good university. How to choose one?
Raed the article
Every year, several students approach me with requests for writing a letter of recommendation (LOR) for them. If a student is known to me personally or if I have taught him/her, I respond positively and invite the student for a personal interview. If a student is not an acquaintance, I politely say, “Sorry, it is not fair on my part to write an LOR for you, as my acquaintance with you is limited.”
A letter of recommendation is a letter written by an academic, administrator, or employer who recommends the applicant for a university study and states how suitable the applicant is for the graduate programme he/she has chosen. Most top colleges and universities abroad require that applicants get LORs from at least three persons, preferably from academics (professors and education supervisors) who have known the applicants long enough and who can write authoritatively about the applicants’ personal qualities, academic achievements and competence. The universities/colleges require that the applicants provide the contact information of the recommenders so that the admission team can contact the recommenders directly via email. Below is a sample from the University of South Florida:
“XYZ has requested that you write a letter of recommendation for admission to a graduate programme at the University of South Florida. By requesting a recommendation through the university’s online application system this applicant has agreed to waive the right to view the recommendation letter that you submit…”
The email communication tells the recommender to maintain confidentiality and not to show the LOR to the candidate or anyone else.
An LOR carries weight and plays an important role in the application screening process. The applicants’ personal qualities, abilities, aptitude, preparedness, research experience, and so on can be known through LORs whereas their other skills (proficiency in the English language and knowledge in the core subjects) can be assessed through standardised tests such as TOEFL, IELTS, GRE and GMAT. Some universities give guidelines to the recommender on what should be focused in the LOR. Here is a sample from San Diego State University:
“Please upload a letter of recommendation. Please include any comments you think important concerning this applicant. We would especially appreciate your comments about (a) the applicant's work prospects; (b) the relevance of graduate work to the applicant's future; and (c) the applicant's intellectual ability and capacity for advanced graduate work.”
In the light of this, it is fair to say that an LOR is a true reflection of an applicant’s self in the form of a letter sent to a university’s admission team for the trust it has placed in the recommender.
For applicants, choosing a good recommender is as important as choosing a good university. How to choose one?
Raed the article
Monday, 25 January 2016
How to win a fellowship
The table in this post describes the skills and experience (relevant to career
stage) applicants should be able to demonstrate when applying for an MRC
fellowship. Career breaks, part-time working and changes in discipline
will be taken into account when assessing research experience to date
and track record.
This can be used as guidelines by every researcher.
view the guidelines
This can be used as guidelines by every researcher.
view the guidelines
Saturday, 23 January 2016
The American Dream and the enigma of departure
The deportation of hundreds of aspiring Indian students betrays not just a lack of synergy between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. consular missions in India but also a series of fatal flaws in the regulation of American higher education
In late 2015, Venkat, an Indian national, arrived at a popular West Coast airport in the U.S., brimming with excitement about the degree in computer science that he hoped to pursue at Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU), in Fremont, California.
He had diligently pulled together what he believed was a strong cache of evidence on his college admission and his financial record, including documents citing the value of the farmland his father owned and even his brother’s income certificate.
But a different fate awaited him.
Instead of disembarking the aircraft and travelling on to the NPU campus as he had hoped, Venkat was pulled out of the immigration line and grilled for three hours by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in a well-lit, sparsely furnished room.
During the interrogation, officials even tested his academic proficiency with mathematics equations and computer science concepts, and despite giving “satisfactory answers” to convince the border police of his bona fide admission to NPU, Venkat was handcuffed at the end of the ordeal, deported to India and slapped with a five-year entry ban.
Read the full article
In late 2015, Venkat, an Indian national, arrived at a popular West Coast airport in the U.S., brimming with excitement about the degree in computer science that he hoped to pursue at Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU), in Fremont, California.
He had diligently pulled together what he believed was a strong cache of evidence on his college admission and his financial record, including documents citing the value of the farmland his father owned and even his brother’s income certificate.
But a different fate awaited him.
Instead of disembarking the aircraft and travelling on to the NPU campus as he had hoped, Venkat was pulled out of the immigration line and grilled for three hours by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in a well-lit, sparsely furnished room.
During the interrogation, officials even tested his academic proficiency with mathematics equations and computer science concepts, and despite giving “satisfactory answers” to convince the border police of his bona fide admission to NPU, Venkat was handcuffed at the end of the ordeal, deported to India and slapped with a five-year entry ban.
Read the full article
Friday, 14 August 2015
National Employability Report - Engineers Annual Report 2014
The National Employability Report - Engineers,2014 is an analytical study of the employability quotient of Indian engineers. It has over the years become an authoritative source for employability statistics for engineers and an auditory mechanism for higher education. The present report aims to delve further into the employability situation and also focuses on job aspirations of engineers. It also aims to understand what factors apart from merit influence employability outcomes.
Download the report
Download the report
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Interesting articles to read -- 04-10-2012
Interesting articles to read -- 04-10-2012
Bangalore should not be the next Silicon Valley: SAP Labs India MD Read
Entrepreneurship Lessons I Learnt from Scientists Read
Beauty lies in the ‘domain’ of the highest bidder: Icann, the global authority dealing with domain names, is hastening the threat of monopolisation on the internet through its new scheme to sell generic words. Read
How you can invest in Google, Apple and Exxon Read
Dr. Subbarao’s haircuts. The economics of haircutting is the last frontier of economics. Read
No quotas for higher studies, please. By P.V.Indiresan, Former Director of IITM. Read
Dr Vijay Mallya Speech @ IIT Bombay
Part 1: See
Part 2: See
Part 3: See
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