IT's Increasing Role in Education : Anand Sudarshan

Interview Questions

Full Interview with Anand Sudarshan

Anand Sudarshan:

Only 11 percent of students in India get higher education compared to 60 percent in developed nations. Distance education can provide an important alternative. It addresses the needs of a large segment of our society who want to continue to learn in a structured fashion. Because of the expansion in distance education, a lot of people come into the mainstream.
Distance learning has started questioning some weakly-held beliefs about education, teaching and learning. And that's thanks to technology. Today's generation is affected by the electronic media and technology in a manner that's very different from its predecessors. If we do not incorporate technology in their everyday learning, we would be missing the bus. Distance education is subsumed under the broader umbrella of the role of technology in education.

Anand Sudarshan:

These are exciting times for the education sector. Two or three decades ago, education had a laissez-faire approach. But, over the last couple of years I've seen a groundswell, especially from the youth, demanding something better. And that groundswell is becoming bigger. It's like a tsunami that's approaching the shore. At the same time, I am seeing an acknowledged willingness to question the status quo. There is a stronger recognition of the fact that youth and education represent a core resource of the country for a long time to come. Therefore, our leadership in the global scheme of things is really dependent on that.

Anand Sudarshan:

EduNxt is a new distant learning course that includes mentoring, virtual classrooms, simulation, interactive content, recorded presentations, shared browsing, and access to over one million online books and journals. It is an overall technology umbrella that covers many things. EduNxt represents an architecture that can help us use technology in all spheres of education: from campus learning to distributed learning and vocational education

Anand Sudarshan:

Ten years ago, I wanted to read a newspaper in the morning but today I read news on the Internet. Of course I read the newspaper, but I do not depend on it to get my daily dose of news.
Distance education is not meant to replace a classical chalk-and-talk kind of classroom structure. A classroom structure gives students a chance to engage with the peer group that they miss out in distance learning. There is certain expansiveness to formal education of the conventional kind. We are not talking about replacement; we are talking about an enhancement of the learning experience through many different media.
Also, in our country, higher education is evaluated by the exclusivity of an institution. We tend to associate pride with the educational institutions we studied in. But there is a vast majority that cannot go to such institutions. It is important to provide them with quality education in a manner that is consistent with the environment they operate in.
That's where I feel distance education is highly applicable. We should not get lost in comparing it with formal education otherwise we will miss the forest for the trees. Some day it will come closer to the effectiveness of formal education.

Anand Sudarshan:

There are a lot of similarities between the technological sector and the educational sector including an engagement with young people and bright minds. Ushering in change is also a characteristic feature of both sectors. The IT sector brings in a change in the way enterprises conduct business. The education sector aims to bring a change not only in society but also at the individual level. Both sectors are reflective of the immense potential India has.
Even when I was in the technology sector, I was very keen on higher education. I spent a considerable amount of time in delivering lectures at institutions of higher education. My core engagement with higher education was always there. My propensity towards higher education can be attributed to the fact that my mother is a teacher. The foundation was laid at a very early stage of my life.
When I shifted to the education sector, two or three years ago, the opportunity in the sector was great. I think the sector has tremendous potential and strategic value. Since my core interest was in education all along and the timing was just right, I decided to make the shift.
The journey has been very exciting because I am doing something that is very close to my heart. I look at my role as a gardener. And, as a gardener I have to make sure that my plants are growing well. I need to ensure that they are watered and nurtured well.

Anand Sudarshan:

IT is close to innovation and process orientation. IT also represents fearlessness for innovation that can result in disruptive growth. Exposure to all of this makes a big difference. Having been in a sector like IT that has demonstrated all this in abundance, I have the ability to understand that innovation is at the core of business. I can accept and embrace disruptive growth. These to my mind are very valuable experiences. Exposure to the IT sector has given me the capability to ask relevant questions, seek answers, and take decisions directly towards implementation and execution.

Anand Sudarshan:

When you run an educational entity with the rigor of an enterprise there are a few things that come to the fore. You bring in accountability that exists in enterprises. You adopt a goal-oriented approach. You also bring in orientation towards operational excellence. This results in the generation of a certain energy, verve, and drive that exists in business enterprises.
Education can become self-consuming, possibly because of the intellectual rigor and strain it exerts. And also because of the feeling - bordering on over-confidence - among members of the educational sector that they are doing good (for society). And therefore the ability to look at ourselves critically normally gets given the go by. But when you bring in an enterprise focus, it leads to self-examination, critiquing, innovation and energy. If you can blend the wisdom and intellectual rigor that characterizes the education sector and combine that with the youth's energy and goal-orientation you can harness a tremendous opportunity

Anand Sudarshan:

There is both organic and inorganic growth and what we have done is an acknowledgement of that strategy. We acquired a skill assessment and testing firm, MeritTrac. In December 2008, we acquired the entire shareholding of American University of Antigua (AUA) from New York-based Greater Caribbean Learning Resources and entered into a strategic partnership with TutorVista.com. We also acquired U21 Global, an online varsity. These universities are very committed to the expansion of non-traditional media.
We will continue to expand through inorganic growth. We will look at enterprises that satisfy the base criteria, adhere to our core values including transparency and commitment to higher education for effective social transformation.

Anand Sudarshan:

The education sector was probably much less affected than other markets by the slowdown. That's because education is a slightly different sector. Compare it to the consumer sector, for example. You'd say that obviously most of the consumer sector is consumer-based. Education is also a consumer sector, but it is investment-based. An individual invests in his education so that he can mould his career for the future. Now compare that against the consumer sector which is driven by consumer expenditure, which can be curtailed.
However, that does not mean that we were not impacted by the slowdown at all. Companies that were investing in training people to make them more productive certainly slashed their training budgets. And that comes as a disappointment to me because this is the time when companies should invest in their people and make them more productive. I understand that in a downturn, the first thing that gets cut is advertising, training and travel. However, I do feel cutting down on the investment in training is not the right approach.

Anand Sudarshan:

From a pure quality perspective it does two or three things. IT allows for consistency of execution. That is something that IT has demonstrated time and again. It also allows people to define processes and makes them more process-centric. But there is a flipside to IT. It can give you so much information that sometimes you keep waiting for information to flow in and do not take timely decisions. You think you don't have adequate information and you keep on granularizing the areas in which you want information. This could lead to information paralysis.

Anand Sudarshan:

Manipal has been around for a very long time. Its name has become synonymous with quality education. In the education sector, differentiation comes from two things and they are interconnected with each other. First is recognizing the perception of the value of the brand. What do students think of Manipal? Second, you should define what your core values are and constantly keep renewing yourself. For example, at Manipal our core values are innovation, doing things that others have not done so far. We also want to expand our footprint beyond India