Over the years, NUEPA's survey of elementary education has become the most thorough audit of Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyan's progress. But secondary education, NUEPA officials admit, is a tough ballgame since there is no database of secondary schools let alone their quality.

The most credible study, done by R Govinda and Madhumita Bandyopadhyay, both of NUEPA, for UK's Consortium for Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE), focussed on how transition from upper primary to secondary has been declining: from 77.9% in 1991-92 to 72.3% in 1998-99.

Accreditation at present is voluntary, resulting in less than 20 per cent of institutions been graded. The University Grants Commission will issue a notification under the UGC Act in the next three months, mak- ing accreditation mandatory for every institution, said UGC chairperson Professor Sukhdeo Thorat. "The commission will have the power to stop funding institutions which are not accredited," he said. Another senior UGC official, who was not willing to be named, said all institutions will have to be accredited with a grading agency like National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC).

To make all institutions come under the grading system, Thorat said, 14,000 colleges and state universities, which are not funded by UGC, will get one time grants to improve physical infrastructure and quality UGC's data says only 24 per cent of 18,000 colleges and 30 per cent of 417 universities are accredited.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave its go ahead for the National Mission on Education through ICT. The HRD Ministry scheme would cost Rs 4,612 crore in the 11th Plan, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said.

Budgetary provision for the scheme for this financial year is Rs 502 crore, he told reporters. As per the scheme, ICT potential will be used to provide high-quality personalized and interactive knowledge modules over the Internet and intra-net for all learners in higher educational institutes in any time and any where basis.

The mission will generate content and provide connectivity to institutes and learners. It will extend computer infrastructure to and connectivity to over 18,000 colleges in the country, including each of the department of 419 universities, deemed universities and institutions of national importance, Sibal said.

The Mission will work in close cooperation with other Missions and schemes like National Translation Mission, Vocational Education Mission, National Knowledge Network and Scheme on ICT in schools to attain synergy and avoid duplication, Sibal said.

The scheme is expected to increase enrolment rate in higher education from 10 per cent currently to 15 per cent by 2012. The connectivity will be extended on a single point rental basis through the department of telecommunications in a manner that would permit their seamless interaction with an integrated National Knowledge Network, Sibal said.

The scheme seeks to bridge the digital divide like the gap in skills to use the computer device among urban and rural teachers. It will focus on appropriate pedagogy for e-learning, online testing and certification, online availability of teachers to guide learners, utilization of available education satellite and Direct to Home platform.

Under the Mission, interactivity and problem solving approach will be addressed through "Talk to a Teacher" segment. It will have a component on teacher empowerment through proper training and digital literacy of teachers to be able to use the e-content, Sibal said.

The Mission will have three-tier committee system to monitor and guide its functioning. The apex national committee will be headed by the HRD Minister and would decide on policy and administrative issues.

The Department of Higher Education under MHRD would enter into a MoU with the state governments for proper monitoring of the scheme in their states and contribute 50 percent of the cost of hardware and 25 percent cost of the connectivity in respect to the institutions maintained by the states. Similar MoUs would be entered into with mentor institutions for private and self-financing colleges.

The scheme would ensure enhancement of access to quality education and make available knowledge module in cyber space.

S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research has already launched a credit-based specialised course on the crisis for their two-year post graduate management students featuring the growth and fall of the global markets.

"When something as historic as this crisis is going on in the world, we felt we should do something about it, and wanted our students to have a sophisticated understanding of how complex the crisis is," said S.P. Jain Institute's dean, Dr M.L. Shrikant.

In October, the Economics and Finance faculty held a brainstorming session to explore links between macroeconomics, central bank policy and collapse in many global markets. Dr Shrikant said, "Our management students have been given handouts from various academic sources on to read about the crisis and explanation by the faculty, which is being followed by assignments and panel discussions."

Full-fledged subject
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon is also exploring the option of including the current slowdown as a full-fledged subject, offering one credit for their students from the next academic year.

"We have that as a plan for the next batch," said Prof. Ashok Kapoor, Communications and Marketing department. He said the course will evolve as the financial crisis improves, stagnates or worsens.

The delay means that HRD ministry cannot acquire land even though site selection is in the final stages. Earlier, the bill could not be introduced in Parliament. Government plans to upgrade three existing universities in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and set up 12 new ones in states without any central university. Goa government refused the Centre's proposal to upgrade Goa University.

Another proposal for 14 world class universities has also been delayed as HRD ministry, PMO and Planning Commission are still involved in finetunning the plan. The government has already decided states where these universities will come up.

Even as the fate of central universities and world-class universities hang in the balance, UGC has finalised regulations for setting up deemed universities. So far, deemed universities had to follow notso-strict guidelines but the new regulations would be gazetted and would empower UGC to have strict control over existing as well as new universities.

The teaching will be done online, through a dedicated pan-India server connecting all higher education institutions under a new central programme cleared by the cabinet today.

Under the scheme, an engineering student from any college can, for instance, ask an Indian Institute of Technology professor questions through a formal mechanism. The professor is expected to reply on a blog created automatically for correspondence once the student asks a question.

Subsequently, all other questions posed by any student to this professor are directed to this blog, which can be publicly accessed. Students can also pose questions to a general database instead of a specific teacher.

The National Mission on Education through ICT (information and communication technology) is estimated to cost Rs 4,612 crore over the 11th five-year plan. The mission was suggested by the National Knowledge Commission and the Oversight Committee that prepared a framework for OBC reservations in higher education.

The programme will make quality education accessible to a greater number of students. The teachers, by becoming popular mentors to students across the country, will add to their "brand value".

The RMSA aims at achieving a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 75 percent for classes IX-X within 5 years by providing a secondary school within a reasonable distance of every habitation.

It also aims at improving the quality of education imparted at the secondary level through making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms and to remove gender, socio-economic and disability barriers, universal access to secondary level education by the end of 12th Five Year Plan and Universal retention by 2020.

Broad physical targets of the RMSA include improving the enrolment ratio for classes IX-X to 75 percent within 5 years from 52.26 percent as in 2005-06' providing facilities for estimated additional enrolment of 32.20 lakhs by 2011-12 through; strengthening of about 44,000 existing secondary schools; opening 11,188 new secondary schools; appointment of 1.79 lakh additional teachers and construction of 80,500 additional classrooms.

E-governance, which means the use of technology to make governance better, involves the development of technology and research in topics such as making the public-private partnership better and coming up with new business models.

Jaijit Bhattacharya, director, Government strategy, Sun Microsystems, said the Indian government wants to invest around Rs 23,000 crore for making e-governance a reality in the future. Sun Microsystems is trying to create the workforce that will be able to implement this vision, Bhattacharya said. "E-governance can contribute to better social infrastructure, lowered cost of running the government, enhanced security and, thereby, better quality of life for the citizens of India. We are sure the centre will be able to bring out the best talent in the field of e-governance," he said.

The centre will carry out research in related areas and educate stakeholders, who broadly include senior government officials, defence officials and other people part of the E-governance system. The centre will also showcase the latest technological innovations and solutions to the government. It will evaluate the impact of technology on the government and society, and formulate an appropriate IT policy.

Professor MP Gupta of IIT, Delhi said: "A lot of research is required in the area of technology for the implementation of E-governance effectively. Research is also required in the socio-economic realm to analyse the requirements of different government organisations and its citizens. This calls for a collaborative effort between the government, academia and a technology provider. Our collaboration with Sun Microsystems leverages their industry leading technology in order to create a sound technological platform for E-governance projects."

"The Centre is also an apt platform to further the cause of open source and open standards," he said.

A team of professors from nine universities, including The Ohio State University, George Washington University and Northeastern University, is currently in the country to meet top companies for this purpose. Some of the companies this team plans to meet are Siemens India, RPG Enterprises, GlaxoSmithkline, Mphasis and Infosys Technologies.

"Our university has lost corporate clients to the slowdown. We are in India to build a relationship with the companies here," said Professor Sumit Kundu, faculty director of E-MBA and coordinator (department of management and international business), Florida International University.

In the past, executive education programmes have been a good source of revenue for universities in the US. In some cases, their contribution to the annual revenue was as high as 40 per cent.

Until some months back, companies in the US used to fully reimburse the students who went for such programmes. Thanks to the meltdown, the same companies have now decided to slash the subsidy by 50 per cent and more. As a result, there are few takers for these programmes. "Certainly, revenue is suffering," said Kundu.

India, to be sure, could be a good hunting ground for these universities as there is a shortage of executive education programmes in Indian business schools. Though there are over 1,500 business schools in India, only the Indian Institutes of Management and other quality B-schools offer such programmes. In contrast, around 500 universities in the US run executive education programmes.

A key recommendation of the Sam Pitroda-led National Knowledge Commission (NKC), this project first mooted in 2007 envisages networking across some 15,000 colleges and universities, putting learning material on line and sharing the expertise of centres of excellence with institutes spread across the country. With the Cabinet nod for the project, this will be one of the few NKC proposals which has found favour with the Arjun Singh led-HRD Ministry.

The Ministry will be tying up with the Department of Telecom for creation of a countrywide broadband access network by utilising its existing optical fibre network. The Mission is expected to cover some 18,000 colleges eventually and make available facilities like e-books and e journals in digital libraries.