Vision

• Providing high-quality instruction at very low cost to a multitude of people encompassing atleast 50% of Indian Higher Edu  institutions (34K colleges /645 Universities), 25 % of Vocational Segment as well used as the “tool” for lifelong learning enrichment  by 2020.
• Essence of Meta University picks up allowing students to take up multiple courses of their interest.  Connects /Touch points created with end beneficiaries via learning hubs for F2F interaction. A financial biz model would emerge for providing these services.

Mission/Goals

• While MOOC’s will be popular from a viewing/consumption perspective, concept of learning hubs (could be colleges or prep centres too) catering to small  groups would evolve – where community teachers/subject matter experts/domain specialists would assist in clarifying doubts or conduct a discussion or help in taking an assessment in a proctored environment.
• Conducive Govt. policy where initiatives like NPTEL and NKN made more robust and augmented with content from top faculty and institutions. Uniform guidelines for conduct of MOOC’s for Level 100 (Base Level) across all technical institutions. Irrespective of language, localization and contextualization of content would be feasible
• Non-traditional entities may begin to offer MOOC’s for people who want to learn a specific subject – example museums on Indology or a World Bank/UNDP like body on Policy Making, etc.  Specialist firms of learning analytics would crop up who would provide inputs to stakeholders on content, learning, pedagogy and assessment.
• Cross Collaboration of Industry Association/ Sector Skills Council to endorse skills acquired by graduates of MOOCs. Paid models of certification to assess knowledge would materialize and trend towards global alliances with traditional universities.

By Kala Vijayaraghavan & Rica Bhattacharyya. It was a wave of sorts and SP Kothari was part of it. The year was 1982, and Kothari, armed with a degree in chemical engineering from BITS Pilani and a management degree from IIM-Ahmedabad, felt the west calling.
He did what many other bright and brilliant Indians were doing at the time for such a passage. "In the 70s, 80s and much of the 90s, the only way to emigrate to the US was higher education," he says. "Many of these students, without even knowing a whole lot about academic careers, joined PhD programmes in the US—these programmes paid full scholarship." Read more...

A government-funded agency is offering scholarships for up to 182 students from developing countries who are interested in studying in Taiwan.
Applications will be accepted through March 14, said Lee Pai-po, deputy secretary-general of the Taipei-based International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), Tuesday.
"This year will be the first time programs taught both in English and Mandarin Chinese will be available for the students," Lee said. "In the past, only English-taught programs were available."
Around 20 places will be available for the Mandarin-taught programs, he said.
The Higher Education Scholarship Program offers scholarships to students from developing countries to study for bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Taiwanese universities. More...

By Hereward Holland. Closed following student unrest in 1988, Yangon University is accepting undergraduates again in a sign of change. Once a hotbed of political subversion, the old foundations of the Rangoon Student Union now sustain a grove of trees that sway sleepily in regimental rows. A student sits on a wall nearby, leafing through a text book.
The old building was blown up in 1962 by the first of Burma's secretive military juntas that steered the country through decades of misrule and eviscerated its once-prestigious higher education system.
Half a century and a name-change later, the leafy avenues of Yangon University are crawling with the first crop of undergraduates to study a curriculum free from the interfering hand of the military. More...