event report
Emerging Directions in Global Education: Catalysing Change EDGE 2010 was a conference that was spread over a period of three days (3-5th March 2010), at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi, with agenda that was to address the ‘Emerging Directions in Global Education’. The first day witnessed registration for workshops and inaugration of the conference and two workshops. The First Day Workshop I: “Lessons Learned: Issues to Consider in Building a National Admissions Test” by The College Board, USA. The panelists for the workshop consisted of Janine M. Farhat, Senior International Specialist, The College Board, who also chaired the session; James Montoya, Vice President, Higher Education Relationship Development, The College Board; Dr. C. Peter Magrath, Senior Presidential Advisor, The College Board; Dr. Andrew Wiley, Executive Director for Higher Education, The College Board; and Madan Padaki, Co-Founder 7 CEO, MeritTrac Services. Workshop II: Education Governance The panelists coinsisted of Prof. N. Ravichandran, Director IIM Indore; Prof. Rachel Davis, Adjunct Professor, National University of Singapore; Prof. Krishna K. Ladha, Professor, IIM Kozhikode; Prof. C.V. Baxi, Former Director, MDI Gurgaon; Sharat Kumar, Former Director, IMT Ghaziabad; Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Vice President – HR, Dell Perot Systems; Prof. Pankaj Gupta, Director, SIBM Bangalore (Also the Chairperson); and Dr. Vidya Yeradekar, Principal Director, Symbiosis. The last session of the day was a Round Table on ‘Catalysing Change’ (Close-Door), whereby, the day ended with a close door meeting between the eminent dignitories present at the conference, which was followed by dinner. 42
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Left to right: Anand Sudarshan, Dr. V S Ramamurthy, Sam Pitroda, Shri Kapil Sibal, Dr. Martha Kanter and Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai at the inauguration of EDGE 2010
The Second Day The next two days of the conference saw sharing of views and discussions held between many eminent scholars and head of the institutions. To begin with, Shri Kapil Sibal, Human Resource Development Minister, Government of India, in his inaugural address of the Third edition of Emerging Directions in Global Education( EDGE) stressed the need for giving freedom to the universities and education institutions for them to develop ability to collaborate globally and find solutions to global problems. He said, “Education through global collaboration can provide solutions to the global problems. But we will have to reform the structure to allow it to happen, and for that we need to give freedom to our universities and educational institutions.” Dr. Martha Kanter Under Secretary, US Department of Education was the ‘Guest of honour’. Other dignitaries present were Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India, Dr. V.S
Ramamurthy, Director NIAS, Prof. V.N Rajashekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU, and Anand Sudarshan, MD & CEO, Manipal Education amongst many other prominent names in the education sector. Three research reports - NIAS EDGE vision document 2010; Catalysing Change, EDGE - Ernst & Young Report “Building blocks for education” and FED UNI (Federation of Universities), Parthenon Report on ‘Bridging The Higher Education Gap: National Universities And Other Models’ were released during the inauguration function. Two More reports - Institute of International Education (IIE) Report on ‘International India: A Turning point in Educational Exchange with the US’ and EDGE-VALUNITES report on ‘Examinations and the role of technology: Emerging Directions were also released later in the day. Sam Pitroda, in his “highlight lecture” said that it was a time to question fundamental issues and a time to change in big way in education sector. He advised the gathering to stop talking