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© 2012 Sanjeev Sabhlok's revolutionary blog
For those who are smitten by the half-baked socialist Arvind Kejriwal (who simply refuses to listen to any sensible idea), here is a leader who is 100 times better. Shantanu, in this video, is explaining why ALL government schools and colleges in India should be privatised. I've, of course, outlined this in great detail in BFN.
I'm also attaching a little "slide" I had prepared yesterday for Facebook.
I was astonished and shocked (actually delighted!) to read how well the Chinese education system is designed, and how brilliantly it is performing.
This education system is China's real secret weapon.
While India goes down the path of the worst possible education system, China has moved to the TOP of the world.
That's enough said.
Here are key extracts:
Chinese school system offers the West a lesson in educational achievement
CHRISTOPHER BANTICK, The Australian, November 03, 2012I AM in a classroom in Beijing. The class has 42 Chinese students who are learning English and all have their books open, pens in hand in anticipation. The students, in response to my questions, stand, give their answers and are then clapped by their classmates. There is no desultory conversation, no distraction – the focus is acute. This is not unusual.
Chinese education is steeped in success.
Part of this is due to brilliant teaching. The preparation of Chinese teachers is first class. Not everyone who wants to be a teacher makes the grade.
China is outstripping Australia through two things: quality teaching and a culture of success related to hard work. What China has grasped is that by learning English, future generations will be able to move globally and do business just about anywhere.
… due to the emphasis China places on achievement and exceptional teaching practice.
A rigorous testing program measures students and exposes variable teaching. It works like this:
Students undergo regional tests after 10 weeks and national tests twice a year. The test data is collected by the schools on students' and teachers' performance. The data is ranked, then used to judge teachers, with salary linked to performance. It's a simple equation: better results mean better salary. It's called motivation. If a teacher's results are not good for two years, the teacher is demoted to a lower class; there is no choice and no appeal. If the results still fail to improve, dismissal is a reality. Teachers work incredibly hard and are regarded as performing a significant role. They are professional and active learners themselves.
One only has to look at the results on the Program for International Student Assessment to gauge China's success.
The PISA tests are held every three years and in 2009 students in Shanghai topped the world rankings for mathematics, reading and science.
Schools are viewed in China as places of industry and application.
The school day in China is long. Some schools start just after 7:30am and end at 5:30pm. Where I taught in Beijing, classes end at 5:30pm, but senior students may well work on until 10:30pm. It was a shock to see full classrooms of Year 12 students, heads bent over books, with no teacher in the classroom. They were studying in week two of the academic year. They did not need supervision.
"In China, more than nine out of 10 children tell you: 'It depends on the effort I invest and I can succeed if I study hard.' They take on responsibility. They can overcome obstacles and say, 'I am the owner of my success', rather than blaming it on the system."
China's route to become the top-ranked country is disarmingly simple: authoritative, informed and inspirational teaching; self-motivated, ambitious and focussed students; and regular external assessment.
As for class sizes; it's a no-brainer. In China, 42 students a class is not unusual. The essential difference is the teacher. This is dragon education, and its outcomes roar loudly.
I'm amazed at the huge proliferation of online courses across the world. I'm unable to keep pace with what's happening. This blog post is a handle for my personal use. As and when I come across info, I'll try to add it here.
If you know of any others, please send in through the comments section.
Ages ago, the world was thought to be flat. Then "scientists" showed it was round.
Then economists showed it is flat once again [The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman].
But now it has shrunk to a flat screen computer.
In June, edX completed its first MIT course, 6.002x Circuits and Electronics, a sophomore level course as rigorous as the MIT on-campus one, according to Mr. Agarwal, who taught it himself with a team of seven others. He says students from 160 countries were represented in the online course. India accounted for the second-largest number of enrollees, with approximately 20,000, while the most – about 60,000 – came from the U.S. [Source]
I wrote about edX here. More is to come.
Universities and educational institutions across the world will need to rapidly restructure now.
Their time is rapidly running out. They're going to lose students, as students switch to cost effective, highly quality alternatives.
This short talk by Professor Walter E Williams (of George Mason University) will persuade you (if you still have doubts) why it is crucial for lower class/caste children of India to be given the BEST private education. And of course, Prof. Williams has other excellent (and thought provoking) things to say in this talk as well.
This particular talk was given by Prof. Williams the Independent Institute in the mid-1990s. (I visited the institute in 1999 along with Parth Shah and keep in touch with a few of its faculty through social media).
Also listen to his other talks. This is excellent. Walker shows how the welfare state has become a "giant drug pusher", preventing all opportunity to succeed through hard work. And in breaking up families – which even slavery could not do.
Over the past year or so I've been writing about how the education system is about to change. And here's evidence that it is ALREADY happening (see the article below). I've annotated in colour. Virtually everything I've been writing about (and talking to people I meet) is happening as we speak. In 10 years, expect the entire education system to have TOTALLY restructured. Most existing university buildings will become shopping malls and gyms.
Online courses winning prestige
BY: ANDREW TROUNSON From: The Australian July 04, 2012
PATTERN recognition and data analytics are highly specialised areas and Deakin University professor Svetha Venkatesh has had to put a lot of work into getting her PhD students up to speed.
But not anymore. She merely has them take a course and test from US Stanford University through online provider Coursera. And it's free.
"It is absolutely excellent; it is like they are attending Stanford," Professor Venkatesh says. When, of course, they are in Geelong.
Coursera is just one of a rising number of so-called Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) providers offering free courses associated with prestigious universities and offering testing and some certification. In the most recent move, Harvard and MIT have created their edX joint venture that will offer free courses.
And if the acronym MOOC is unwieldy, then at least "massive" captures the impact they are set to have on higher education. Some are calling it a "tsunami", others a "paradigm shift" or "game-changer".
Last week, Deakin vice-chancellor Jane den Hollander announced a new strategy in which MOOC courses would be embedded in curriculum as part of a shake up of teaching and learning. Traditional lectures would go by the wayside with free content being cherry-picked online from the world's best universities. That would, in theory at least, free up academics to focus on assessment tasks and more personalised teaching, including face-to-face, video and online.
And this week University of Southern Queensland vice-chancellor Jan Thomas was in India promoting the online Open Education Resource University international joint venture in which students can access content for free and only pay if they sit exams — a model pioneered by Britain's Open Universities, which now has 275,000 students globally.
But the potential ramifications are profound and it won't all be welcome news. Many Australian universities, perhaps all, simply won't be able to compete with much of the high-quality content on offer. And while that may force a timely refocus on the student experience and pedagogy, such as at Deakin, it raises doubts over the value of on-campus learning universities.
Australia's international market could be threatened if students in Asia simply supplemented their local degree with a Harvard course. It's an appealing and much cheaper alternative to spending tens of thousands dollars studying here.
"The Ivy League has nothing to lose because everybody will still want to go there and have the networking benefits. But a lot of other universities are going to be in the gun," said higher education expert Simon Marginson.
MOOCs could also drive a concentration of knowledge and content generation in the elite globally branded universities, and accelerate trends towards teaching-only academics.
The desirability of a full local degree could be undermined by students cobbling together several globally branded courses with parts of a local degree in a package that could end up being more sought-after by employers.
Open Universities Australia chief executive Paul Wappett said the attitude of employers would be critical. And he notes that the decline in university IT courses has been partly driven by the likes of Microsoft and Cisco taking over the space and employers valuing their certificates.
Melbourne University's Richard James says there is no doubt the sector is being hit by the first wave of a possible revolution. But he maintains universities remain central because of their ability to handle complex student assessment, the attraction of "deep" face-to-face learning, and their control over accreditation. [Sanjeev: THIS MAN IS LIVING IN A WORLD OF DELUSION!!]
"We are seeing the first wave of what looks like the disruptive effects of technology. At the moment the excitment is around high-quality free content. Once that is backed by rigorous assessment, student support and transpersonal deep experience then maybe the real revolution has hit us," he said.
Sean Gallagher, from Sydney University's US Study Centre, said MOOCs represented both a threat and an opportunity and he backed Deakin's move to embrace it. "These high-profile universities have attached their elite reputations to developing this and that says that online is here to stay as part of the future of elite tertiary education," he said.
Deakin's deputy vice-chancellor (academic) John Catford said: "We will provide content in ways students can access that are easier and mobile, and break it down into maybe 10 minute bites rather than 50 minute gulps."
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