MEDIA RELEASE
Dun & Bradstreet, in association with Mindlogicx launches Universities of India 2008
Bangalore, January 24, 2009: Dun & Bradstreet, the world’s leading provider of global business information, knowledge and insight, in association with Mindlogicx, today, released the inaugural edition of Universities of India 2008.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Manoj Vaish, President & CEO – India, Dun & Bradstreet, said “Higher education has been an area of focus for governments over the last decade or so with a number of initiatives being taken to ensure that people have better access to higher education. This has had a positive impact and our study reveals that the surveyed universities have reported an 81% increase in student enrolments between the academic sessions of 2006-07 and 2007-08. The study also indicates that these universities have now initiated numerous new courses and programs that are aimed at meeting real world requirements. The surveyed universities have reported a 53% increase in the number of students with work experience for the same period.”
“While these numbers indicate good progress, some work still remains to be done. While student enrolments have increased dramatically, the student teacher ratio for the surveyed universities has seen a negative impact. The ratio has deteriorated from 1:15 in 2006-07 to 1:22 in 2007-08. Having said that, our study also reveals that faculty retention and quality of education is top priority for the surveyed universities,” he added.
The publication was released by Chief Guest, Smt. Daggubati Purandeswari, Minister of State for Human Resource and Development, Government of India
About Universities of India 2008
Universities of India 2008, documents the achievements of prominent universities across India. A total of 165 universities and university level institutions that fall under the purview of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and/or governed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), GoI have been covered in the publication. These comprise of 40% State Universities, 28% Deemed Universities, 18% Institutes of National Importance, 9% Central Universities, 3% Private Universities and 2% Open Universities. Universities that provided sufficient information as required were chosen for analysis. D&B India also conducted a talent study based on a survey of 125 BSE listed companies in which senior management from the human resource department voiced their opinions about the education system and the employment situation in India.
Key findings
The total number of enrolled students in the surveyed Universities grew by 81% for the academic sessions of 2006-07 and 2007-08. However the study also showed that faculty recruitment has not been able to keep pace with the growing number of students. The pupil to teacher ratio changed from 1:15 to 1:22 for the same period, and lags behind in comparison with some of the developed economies such as the US and UK.
Among the Universities surveyed, quality of education and retention of faculty emerged as key concerns – thus moving beyond the traditional concern of lack of funds.
Among the Universities surveyed, the number of students with work experience grew by 53% for the academic session of 2007-08 over the previous year indicating that higher education as a medium of updating skills and knowledge is gaining traction among professionals.
Over the years, governments have been promoting women’s education. These measures to promote women’s education seem to have culminated in positive results. Our study shows that women enrolment accounted for nearly one fourth of the total enrolment and increased by around 100% in the academic session of 2007-08 over the previous session.
Increasing use of Information Technology has added a new dimension to the method of imparting education in India. Our study shows that around 20% of the surveyed universities offer e-learning content and have the capacity to offer the full programme online. This percentage is expected to increase significantly over the next few years.
Among the surveyed universities, the number of students with work experience increased by 53% from 1,439 in 2006-07 to 2,212 in 2007-08. A key driver for this has been the number of new courses and programs offered by universities that attempt to meet industry requirements.
Our survey also revealed that student enrolment for Ph. D programmes grew by 17% for the academic session of 2007-08 over the previous year.
About Dun & Bradstreet (D&B):
Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB), the world’s leading source of global business information, knowledge and insight, has been enabling companies to Decide with Confidence® for 165 years. D&B’s global commercial database contains more than 135 million business records. The database is enhanced by D&B’s proprietary DUNSRight® Quality Process, which transforms the enormous amount of data collected daily into decision-ready insight. Through the D&B Worldwide Network – an unrivaled alliance of D&B and leading business information providers around the world – customers gain access to the world’s largest and highest quality global commercial business information database.
Customers use D&B Risk Management Solutions to mitigate risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability, D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions to analyse markets, locate prospects and increase revenue from new and existing customers; D&B Export Marketing Solutions to gain significant insight into overseas markets and increase sales; D&B Financial Education Solutions to facilitate professional growth and excellence among their executives and D&B Economic Analysis Group to derive pragmatic and solution-oriented analyses of strategic economic and business developments, thereby aiding informed decision making.
D&B features on FORTUNE Magazine's Most Admired Companies Industry List, ranking first in the Financial Data Services category. D&B ranked first in the areas of employee talent, financial soundness, long-term investment, quality of management and use of corporate assets. D&B has achieved this distinction for the second consecutive year.
About Mindlogicx Infotech:
Mindlogicx Infotech Ltd, an R & D based technology development company, straddles products and services verticals in knowledge management space. The company operates with two key portfolio differentiators catering to education and business space respectively with the common objective of powering competency. The company undertakes large turnkey projects of setting up virtual education framework for universities and offers services in digital content management, learning management, digital library and other allied services. It also handles e-business integration, Research & Analysis, contract R & D and IT consulting.
The company has developed and successfully deployed world’s first integrated technology platform known as “VEDAS” that powers the major solutions and services of the company. VEDAS (Virtual Education Delivery and Assessment System) provides technology platform for the flagship services of Mindlogicx including MindSpace, the virtual education solution for universities; Knowledge Assessment Platform (KAP) for corporate skills assessments and Knowledge Network (K.Net) services for its Online Finishing School.
The company has been identified as one among the “Top 15 Exciting & Emerging Companies to work for” by NASSCOM. The company is “Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2008” winner and Red Herring 100 Asia winner in 2008 for disruptive technology development.
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