Inside the “champion of the challenged” Rashmi Paliwal’s garment factory in Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon (Haryana), differently-abled people go about their jobs adroitly under a monitor’s supervision. Some are putting tags on garments even as the others slip them into shiny cellophane packets. In the tailoring department, a few are cutting up garments while others are measuring them, stitching or sewing buttons onto them.

“I started out with just a handful of challenged people when I began my business in 1980,” says Paliwal, winner of the 1999 Hellen Keller award instituted by the National Centre for the Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. “But when I saw that a small measure of training and encouragement could transform their lives, give them dignity and a source of livelihood, I began employing differently abled workers in right earnest,” recalls Paliwal.

Today, 45 of her workforce of 400 are physically or mentally challenged while 250 have been trained under her Project Disha programme and employed in other enterprises. Paliwal’s special workforce produces uniforms for several Delhi schools apart from staging street plays with social messages during off duty hours. “I intend running an entire factory with challenged personnel to produce uniforms for schools, airlines, restaurants and malls,” says this entrepreneur who has a Master’s in textile design from M.S. University, Baroda.

To further empower challenged people and enhance their employability in industry, Paliwal also conducts sensitisation workshops for exporters, training workshops for the disabled apart from networking with NGOs and academic institutes to lobby for their rights. She has also done research projects on the disabled with the blue-chip Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and some colleges of Delhi University. “It’s a pity,” she avers, “that in a country with 40 million challenged people, we’re doing so little to help them. We need to teach the public that the great majority of them can, given the chance, become highly productive, tax-paying citizens,” says Paliwal, whose firm Balloons (annual sales: Rs.20 crore) exports clothing and furnishings to Europe and the US.

Paliwal’s induction and training methodology for the disabled is as effective as it is self-designed. Every challenged inductee is placed in one of the numerous departments of Balloons to gauge her aptitude. In the course of rotation a job suited to the person’s ability is found. “We try and absorb as many people as possible and very rarely turn anyone away. The garment industry has so much scope for challenged people. We’ve also been able to place our trainees with other export companies,” explains Paliwal.

With the textiles and garment industry experiencing boom conditions following the abolition of country quotas, this is an opportunity for other garment manufacturers to follow in Paliwal’s footsteps.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Online learning facilitators

Online learning is slowly but surely becoming popular, especially in the area of business education, with a growing number of working executives opting to learn continuously and accelerate their career progression. Among the leading online education providers in India are Hughes Direcway, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, BITS-Pilani, etc. To their ranks add a new entrant: the Singapore-based Universitas 21 Global (U21G, estd. 1998). U21G representatives Dr. Michael Goldberg and Dr. Jeremy Williams were in Bangalore last month (May) to herald the online varsity’s ambitious expansion plans in India and to explore the possibility of forging corporate and university partnerships.

“The Indian economy has entered a critical growth stage and needs a large number of highly educated and skilled business professionals to lead this transformation. India’s much-too-few highly rated education institutions such as the IITs and IIMs can’t cater to this growing demand, and legions of talented but underserved graduates are being deprived of quality B-school education. We intend to bridge this demand-supply gap by providing quality online postgrad education to Indian managers. To this end we employ sophisticated technology to enable any student or junior executive who has access to an internet connection, even at a low speed of 28.8 kbps, to download course material,” says Dr. Michael Goldberg, the Singapore-based dean (academics) of U21G.

U21G is a joint venture of Universitas 21 (an international network of 16 research-intensive universities in Europe, North America, South-east Asia and Oceania) and Thomson Learning, a subsidiary of the Thomson Corporation (annual revenue in 2001: US$ 7.2 billion or Rs.32,400 crore). It is the newest eUniversity to offer on-the-ball industry-oriented study programmes “designed to mould mid-career executives into global business leaders”.

“U21G has set new global benchmarks for online education with interactive, student-led and instructor-facilitated pedagogies. We are confident that the learning skills and knowledge that we provide will distinguish our students as leaders in the newly emerging global economy. Once a student enrolls into a U21G study programme he/she becomes a member of a worldwide learning community, which confers the benefit of a global experience without a student actually venturing out of her workplace,” says Dr. Jeremy Williams, director of pedagogy and assessment at U21G.

Currently U21G offers a three-semester (18-48 month) MBA programme, priced at US$ 7,500 (Rs.3.2 lakh). It has an aggregate enrollment of 750 students worldwide, of which nearly 120 are from India. According to Goldberg this number is increasing steadily.

Given the encouraging response of Indian students to its study programmes, U21G has drawn up an impressive blueprint for transformation of online education in India. Its first objective is to establish strategic linkages with leading Indian higher education institutes- the IIMs, NITs and BITS. Further, it proposes to offer new postgraduate degree, diploma and certificate programmes in an array of subjects including information systems management, travel and tourism, television programming and management, telemedicine, etc.

For the thousands of next-best graduates who don’t make it into India’s few and far between IIMs and IITs as also for ambitious junior executives with high level aspirations, new options are becoming available via technology breakthroughs. That can’t be bad news for anyone except for privileged minorities and complacent top level managers in corporate India.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

Also read: Online Learning Success Story

Polymath educationist

Prolific writer, internationally renowned demographer, committed social worker, academician and philosopher — Knight Grand Commander Chevalier Dr. K. Thyagarajan is a multi-dimensional personality. As founder-secretary of United Writers’ Association (UWA), Chennai- an organisation established in July 1975 to promote national unity, education and culture, and mediate between the public, Parliament, government and opinion leaders in commerce and industry- Thyagarajan has been relentlessly striving to focus public attention on social, economic and political issues facing the country, inspiring young writers to greater heights and guiding organisations to succeed. In recognition of his outstanding service to nation-building he was recently appointed an academic fellow of the London College of Applied Science, 2005; conferred the Seva Ratna Gaurav award (2005) for his contribution to diversified fields of human endeavour and the prestigious Himalaya award (2004-2005) instituted by the Community Welfare Foundation, New Delhi for his services in the realm of community development.

An ardent admirer and disciple of the late Indian Express editor Frank Moraes, the doyen of Indian journalism, Thyagarajan established the Frank Moraes Foundation (FMF) in 1985 and instituted the Frank Moraes Memorial Lecture in 2002.

“The annual lectures by eminent thinkers, economists and industrialists that UWA has been organising for the past three decades, have contributed to the development of healthy and outspoken public opinion in our country. UWA’s raison d’etre is honesty and integrity in public life and my mission is to educate the masses, mould writers and help attain the social, cultural and religious goals of UWA,” says Thyagarajan, a biology, journalism and mass communications postgrad of Madras University, who has also been conferred 37 doctorates in demography, literature, political science, mass communications among others by renowned universities in India and abroad.

Over the past 29 years since its inception, UWA has been actively involved in organising seminars, propagating ethical and spiritual values, encouraging young writers, doing social work and fostering excellence in various fields to which end it has instituted 16 UWA awards. With an abiding interest and knowledge of religion and philosophy, Thyagarajan has published religious literature, participated in renovation of temples and spearheaded religious activities with the support of UWA.

This polymath educationist’s future plans include construction of a convention centre to accommodate 500 people for religious discourses; building a library exclusively for research scholars in UWA’s new, under-construction building; upgrading the Frank Moraes Memorial Foundation by instituting awards to recognise and promote talent in inter disciplinary sciences and continuing his lifelong mission of educating destitute and handicapped children. “What I have done is infinitesimal compared to what remains to be achieved in my work and life,” says Thyagarajan who retains an innate simplicity and humility despite his prodigious accomplishments and professional standing.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

High quality advice

A distinguished recent visitor to Indian shores was Prof. Frances Cairncross, dean of Oxford University’s highly regarded Exeter College. Her mission was to acquaint the students’ community in India with the excellent study programmes offered by this fourth oldest college of the much venerated Oxford University, UK. Currently Oxford has 135 Indian students studying within its institutions but would like to see many more of them pursuing higher education there. “We would like to see more Indian students at Oxford and more of them doing undergrad studies. I particularly recommend Exeter College to them. We appreciate Indian students because they tend to have good basic education and can think for themselves. Indian students are argumentative and Oxford likes that,” she says.

Cairncross advises US enamoured Indian students to seriously evaluate the advantages of studying in Europe as Chinese students are doing in growing numbers. “India sends only half as many students to study abroad as China but a mere 7 percent of Indians come to Britain while 76 percent choose to study in the US. A university in Europe will provide them a more global and international outlook. True, it’s not possible to get financial aid as easily in Britain. But there is a lot of money in this country. It would be worthwhile to canalise it in the right direction,” says Cairncross.

An alumna of Oxford and Brown University, USA, Cairncross has an impressive track record in government, media and academia. Currently she is chairman of Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council, broadcasts for the BBC and was managing editor of The Economist until 2004. She has lectured widely to audiences in several countries, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Given her impressive credentials, Cairncross offers some useful advice. On the Indian economy she remarks: “There is far too much regulation in this country; it’s a direct cause of corruption. The country needs heavy deregulation and fewer people in government.”

Cairncross is doubtful whether the G8 initiatives for Education for All by 2015 can be met on a worldwide basis. “It will be very difficult with many countries in the world not having sufficient political stability,” she says. However, regarding education in India, Cairncross is bullish. “India’s institutes of management and IITs are among the best globally,” she comments, “especially if one wants to be taught in English. India should really position itself as an exporter of education services to the world, particularly to countries in Asia and restructure the education system accordingly.”

This is particularly good advice from a distinguished economist and media pundit. But like all good advice, it’s likely to fall on unreceptive ears.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Educationist politician

Vayalar Ravi, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on HRD in the Rajya Sabha and veteran Congress leader from Kerala, is all praise for the country’s 926 Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) schools promoted by the Central government. In fact, the committee has made a recommendation to the HRD ministry to establish more KVs, by relaxing existing norms if necessary. Ravi believes that KVs have the potential to compete with the genext private schools which are beyond the reach of the general public. “Members of the standing committee are appreciative of the standards and quality maintained by Kendriya Vidyalayas. But they are open only to children of Central government employees, army etc. Therefore, we have suggested open access to them for children of the general public, even if it means diluting admission norms,” says Ravi.

A “leftist” within the Congress, Ravi began his political career by organising the Kerala Students Union in 1957 that become the driving force behind the establishment of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the Congress party’s student wing. The president of the Cochin Port Trust Workers’ Union for the past three decades, Ravi’s is an influential voice within the ruling Congress party (he is a CWC member, AICC general secretary and KPCC president) given his 30 years in politics. First elected to Parliament in 1971 and again in 1977, he is currently serving a second term in the Rajya Sabha.

A law graduate of Kerala University, Ravi professes a special interest in education. “It’s indisputable that education is central to national development and social advancement. I firmly believe that we can successfully fight poverty by providing universal access to elementary — including secondary — education. As parliamentarians we should play an active role to give education a high place on the national agenda,” he says.

The standing committee has invited public opinion and views on improving education in the country. “We have received many recommendations from various quarters including NGOs, academicians, parents, opinion leaders and the general public. And we are appreciative of these suggestions. On the basis of these recommendations we’re preparing reports for the ministry for examination,” he says.

In particular Ravi expresses dissatisfaction with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), which he believes has not filled the void created by the lack of formal education. “The committee has recommended that budgetary allocation for the NIOS be enhanced and that NIOS be fully supported to become a vibrant system,” he says.

Autar Nehru (New Delhi)