Forget E-learning it’s Rotting at the Base!

E-learning sounds attractive, suggesting a gigantic leap onto an era of rapid and serious learning change. The psychological comfort it offers to educationists and upmarket teachers in India enables them to use these complexities of technology to raise the level of perception towards learning and education. Today its clear that there’s no rocket science in learning – the way it is made to appear.

Look at the very core of the educational system in India -- it’s a pure mess. The basics are so intelligently sidelined through a fascinating technological garb that it confuses many a poor souls. For the Indian citizenry its a confusing realm as they try to make sense of traditional education and technology-aided. No other example can highlight this mess than the recent confusion surrounding Nursery admissions in the various schools of Delhi – India's national capital.

It was a quite a drama in Delhi. Right under the nose of the central government and with the seemingly stringent norms spelt out by the Ganguly Commission, the schools blatantly ignored rules, bent admission procedures, fiddled with processes and led to a massive confusion of sorts. Yet very few voices could be heard against this. Perhaps the Indian citizenry remained immatured to be able to see through the flimsy system.

Schools in Delhi had their own unique criteria for admission. Under the garb of the Ganguly Commission the admission formula was a mess – every school had its own unique system. Parents meanwhile remained thoroughly confused. There were ones who applied for their ward’s admission to as high as 35 schools, since they were not sure where they would get lucky. At the end of the ordeal almost all ended up in despair. They did not know what criteria were used to select students. When they demanded information they were shooed away like cattle. Information collected from several parents reveal a vicious nexus. Some suggested that it was the social status and wealth that defined the admission norm – for schools remained in the run to grab students whose parents were powerful enough to offer them indirect benefits – in cash or in kind.

Amindst this chaos there were several hundreds of low-grade schools that attempted to position themselves as an alternative – showcasing such things as the airconditioned classroom, presence of a swimming pool and other so-called “world class standards”. Most of these schools also used the word ‘International’ as a prefix or suffix to suggest their new found avatar. A closer look suggests that they were nowhere near being international – even on the cleanliness front.

The very premise in which everyone questions these schools is the fact that the land in which they were situated was handed over to them by the Government – since education is considered to be serving a noble cause. There were countless news items on the admission process in Delhi that questioned the credibility of admission and the response of the government.

The dramatics that unfolded and was spread over several days threw more questions than answers. It suggested how Indian education system remained eons behind global educational standards. It also forced many to question the veracity of the claims that most schools make about education – most of which was downright farcical. For scholars the situation offered a perfect ground for conducting research on education in third-world countries. Its perhaps interesting to see that why India produces very little leaders and researchers and more of salaried slaves who find solace in serving in a private or a government sector company that can guarantee them a decent lifestyle – nothing more nothing less.

Indian companies need competent HR professionals

Any wonder what the acronym HR means in India --"Human Resource" or "Human Recruitment."

Any discussion on organizations and training is perhaps incomplete without looking at the HR practices and HR health of organizations today. Inspite the booming economy Indian companies appear to be grappling with rising attrition rates. People join organizations in hoardes and leave them in hoardes. Surely a concern for all.

For experts high attrition rate symbolizes a heathy economy. Enormous opportunities, they say, are driving the youth to seek fatter salary packages. Companies, on the other hand, see attrition as the organization's inability to match the industry-standard salary packages. In essence both these perspectives are flawed at the very core.

The current issues of employee-retention is a fabulous creation of shabby HR practices -- a creation of ill-bred and half-baked HR professionals, most of whom owe their knowledge to C-grade run-of-the-mill institutes strewn across India. For most HR activity relates only to "Recruitments".

Rising attrition rates is a direct reflection of the HR incompetency. HR Departments, for one, are now endowed with the skills, competency and knowledge to map individual needs and organizational goals -- a prerequisite while recruiting resources. Today very few Indian HR professionals appreciate the immense potential of on-demand training and e-learning. For them these are jargons that typically signify nothing. No wonder that HR Departments in Indian companies (barring a few well-structured companies) has now come to be seen as a very low-end and low-dignity assignment in the management spectrum.

MAP YOUR ORGANIZATION'S HR HEALTH ...
To clearly understand how the HR is setting back your organization try answering the following questions:

1. Has your HR Department ever asked you to submit your training needs?

2. Did you ever find an HR professional who has offered you matured and professional advice that we all associate with global businesses?

3. Is your HR department courageous enough to put a box soliciting annonymous letters about the issues or sought questions directly in an open house forum?

4. How many HR professionals within your organization are perceived as employee-friendly?

5. Don't you think that the HR department in your organization are seen as boot-licking spies of the senior management and cannot be trusted with any personal information.

6. Did you ever debate on issues with any HR personnel and receive a very parochial and bosterous perspective that we associate with people with a narrow outlook?

6. How many HR professionals in Indian companies have a perfect understanding of the company's line of business? Can you expect to get a satisfactory understanding of your company from them?

DUCKS, RABBITS & LEARNING

I was immersed in the design of our organizational newsletter in this decrepit Advertising agency in South Delhi when I received a call on my mobile. The caller informed me about swimming ducks, a defiant pack of dogs, unruly pigeons, staring rabbits and colorful fishes. For a moment I tried to rationalize on what was more important for me – the saga of these creatures or my editing the newsletter. Surely the newsletter! But these tales too were not of lesser importance. They were from my 3 year old darling daughter who had just returned after her school trip to Bal Bhawan.

That day evening I perched comfortably with my dearie daughter and listened to her experience in Bal Bhawan – so honestly captured and relayed. All along as Pakhi stood trying to narrate me what she saw I could sense how interesting learning can become if we were to remove the artificial garb of formalism and protocol that we endeavour it to wear.

Learning about the way children learn offers us a great research opportunity. Few realize that the exact nature in which children learn, if captured and analyzed properly in the relevant cultural and socio-economic context, can be applied in various learning scenarios that are unique to India. The psychological inter-play of cognitive processing, the impact of the environment, the impact of language and the socio-cultural context is barely understood. In India, in the current format in which learning is being sold and bought, research often finds a backseat. The reasons for this abject rejection of research as foundation for the future can be seen as as an academic limitation or because such research is often considered tedious and not seen as providing overnight results.

I believe that today or tomorrow we may need to take a serious call on this callousness towards "learning research". Though institutions such as the CBSE and the NGO sector have initiated steps in this directio, a research-based analytical mindset is still a far-cry in most institutions that deal with learning. Till then, we all will continue to read about what learning research was undertaken in which part of the world with what impact. Isn't it time we stopped such blatant emulation and address learning issues as they are –- contextually?

Cheats, Drama and Survival

Folks, I am back!

Its been several months now that I had disappeared from the bloggers realm as anxious readers tried contacting me over mails, over phones and what not. Well, the past few months have been exciting, not to mention the drama that was kicked off by one of my blog posts on fradulent organizations. I had to delete the post because of the painful and unfortunate events that ensued.

My story on an institute that trains Air Hostesses was extremely honest. I had captured every small detail with the rigours of a perfect reporter. The writeup, as soon as it was posted, bought down the rankings of the institute -- putting my post much higher in rank in Google search. Almost a day later I received a call from the lady with whom I had interacted during the freelance work (amounting to Rs 25,000 that I was never paid). She informed me that she had left her job in the institute and was held almost captive in a location in South Delhi and was being threatened. She told me that unless I removed my post she would be tortured. Thereafter, I received a call from the Branding Director of the institute - suave in communication but criminal by intent. He tried to entice me with plesantries (the usual sweet talk of professionals in Delhi). When I disagreed he started using abusive language, almost sounding like a roadside goon. I kept quite. All the while he never talked of the money that his company owed me. He told me that he will ensure that he stops my blog and reduce its value. He did this by posting several annonymous vulgar messages that suits his personality perfectly.

By the end of the day too many people got involved in the drame -- 2 Vice-Presidents of the company I was working in, the top management of that air hostess training institute, a few journalists, 2 petty politicians and some friends. At my end I reached an understanding by midnight that I should pull down the blog post because the girl was begging mercy and the Vice Presidents wanted me to stay away from such petty thugs who while positioning themselves in an institute that is branded well did not have an iota of credibility.

However, I personally have drawn two conclusion from the drama that ensued. One that most of these so-called brands in Delhi have a dark and shadier side to their existence. And two, Frankfinn Air Hostess Academy is the undisputed leader in Air Hostess training. Its far better off in terms of quality that its desperate counterpart.

Freelance Frauds: Delhi tops the List

Have you ever been cheated in a project where your intellectual work was simply stolen? Was there a situation where the money promised to you in a freelance writing project was simply never delivered? Well, its far too common in Delhi -- perhaps one reason for people getting less and less attracted towards freelance assignments.

Most freelance assignment in Delhi drops in through a friend with lot of sweet talk and friendly gesture, something that is intended to override your demand for a contract paper. Common dialogues that drop from the proposer of the assignment when you seek a written agreement etc are, Are Humari Aur Aapki relation alag Hai," "Aap to Mere Bhai Ho," Yeh Sale Fraud Companies Ne To Delhi Mein Sabka Naam Badnam Kar Rakha Hai."

And while you spend fuel and effort running around putting together parts of a great assignment, its often too late when you hear that the project was "shelved" for reasons unexplained or your english was simply "not upto the mark." Even programmers are not spared from this ever-rising menace of frauds.

Content writing and research frauds in Delhi is in its all-time high. Even senior professionals with several years of experience often find themselves in the receiving end of such practices. Since the relationships usually does not come through hard paper contracts, freelance workers usually do not have the power to appeal before a labour court of take legal action.

How do you identify credible companies from fradulent ones? Well, there is no single formula in which you can. Even job sites like http://www.naukri.com/ and http://www.monster.com/ carry a advertisements of several of such fradulent freelance companies.

My suggestion to all freelancers in Delhi is to undertake some research before undertaking any assignment. And the one best formula for succeeding in the game is to look at all these companies with skepticism -- that will keep you alert about where you are heading. And do not forget to sign a contract beforehand!

I will definately try to publish some amazing and true case studies of such fradulent cases in Delhi for seperating the wheat from the chalf.

Does the Ambience impact e-learning?

Oft my mind pondered whether e-learning as a profession was impacted by the ambience or not. Perhaps Yes.

Unlike the regular software development work, e-learning requires a serene ambience, one that could steer the human mind to levels of utmost calm and well-being wherein it could blossom and relive the instructional designer of creative blockades.

My conversations with some instructional designers in Genpact and NIIT have helped me understand the deeper workings of the human mind to a greater extent – in the way the ambience and the surroundings impinge on performance. Many professionals who undertake onsite visits in the US and Europe have displayed significant levels of enthusiasm, that perhaps was absent when they were squeezed inside a concrete building with little scope for cognitive boosterism.

Whatever be the conditional theories of the human mind and the feelings therein, I feel the following pictures will surely transfer instructional designers to an ethereal realm of calmness. These are the pictures from Austria and the Alps mountain range…

Hey! Is the E-learning Boom Round the Corner?

Its interesting to see how the Indian mainstream media occasionally dabbles with features on e-learning. Surprisingly, for more than a decade now reporters continue to file the same generic stories on e-learning over and over again. A common theme in most of these stories is about the e-learning boom that's just "round the corner." Such themes were interesting a decade back. Now they sound monotonous and give the impression that e-learning as a profession has made no stride. Perhaps this has more to do with the poor breed of technology journalists in India whose sense of journalism is to COPY PASTE stories from old sources and give them a slight twist.

The latest article is filed by The Tribune and even in TOI's Ascent that dwells on the same stale theme. And as if that was not sufficient senior industry professionals too have jumped in the fray with their bit of stale soothsaying.

Its time we spare the media channels! Its time we allowed e-learning to speak for itself. Isn't it in poor taste to use rhetoric, cathy phrases and soothsaying to promote the field of e-learning? The time for such frills are passe and its time that journalists and industry professionals stop singing the same stale song over and over again. Let the newcomers in e-learning not be awed with such features and interviews that do little service by way of informing readers. At best these shoddy writeups just fill newspaper space and generate hype for e-learning companies eager to earn the tag of a "leader."