EdExcitement

I have just created this blog to share the excitement the I have experienced, and is experiencing, in the field of education. The glitter in the eyes of the young minds that you come across is fascinating. The words that you share with them are carried with utmost care and you feel wonderful. Welcome you all to share your views and post your comments to create a enriched world. Arindam

The madness of the last 2 years is settling down a little - jumping from vocational training to higher education; enough to allow me to reflect on the amazing experience of vocational skills training at the grassroots levels in India. Industrial Training Institutes On one hand, we have the ITIs (Industrial Training Institutions, for the uninitiated); reasonably good hard infrastructure (buildings, machines, facilities) and extremely poor soft infrastructure (people, quality of training and even basic discipline). It has been a great experience for me to be acting as Chairman for 7 ITIs in Haryana for the past 30 months. Taking a closer look, the students coming into these institutions from the villages in the state have great potential and most of them, contrary to popular belief, come in with a lot of expectation. However, they soon become part of the web of “free” education with no accountability on the quality of training. New buildings are made, but housekeeping staff (‘sweeper’ in...

The trigger for this piece happened as I was at Andheri CL center in Mumbai recently and saw this poster about “ants”. It said something like this – “Ants never give up on their goals, you obstruct them and they take a detour. However, they continue eventually in the direction that they needed to move, though in normal times, they move in a “herd format” – one behind the other”. The past year has been difficult for most of us. The process of surviving through difficult times is a challenge that one cherishes only when it is over. We have all been moving in a “herd format” – everyone bullish about growth, everything around us growing……till the world around us came crashing down – layoffs, salary cuts, no increments, no bonus. Some people gave up, others frustrated, depressed; only a few kept moving on towards the goal, just like the ants. A number of people came up to me during this period and talked about their difficult financial condition and the associated mental stress of self and ...

Does summer internship really contribute substantially to the learning process of a business management graduate? There are arguments on both sides and both views can be logical. Before we delve into this, let us take a look at the process of management education. During the first year of the usual 2-year MBA programme, a student is exposed to the various functions of an organization. This prepares the student for the foundations of management theory. However, management education in hardly academic in nature – it has a strong focus on applying the same in real life situation and this transition is difficult. My own view is that the summer internship provides you with the best opportunity to attempt at making this transition. And most students fail while making this transition, as this is the first time that most of them are attempting such a transition. Yes, even for the students having pre-programme work experience – since it is the first time that they will attempt to put mana...