Ahead of August 15, 2010, the 63rd independence day of India, what intrigues me is that while the or nation, personified by Goddess Bharti, was freed in 1947, and the economy, personified by say Goddess Lakshmi, has had the taste of liberalisation in 1991, when the shackles will be broken of education in this country, personified by Goddess Saraswati.
Whither New Education Policy & Knowledge Commission?
While the terms of the game in the world of education were planned to be changed when the new Education (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal took charge, there is little progress on ground. There were promises galore. Examination pressure to be gone, one school education system across India, single higher education authority to come in and end the corrupt raj of multiple bodies often working at cross purposes, liberalisation of education by allowing people sector bodies, corporate houses and foreign universities also to enter the domain of education in India, and the like. Progress in all of these is largely in terms of decisions to be taken, paperwork being done, after more than one year now.
A large nation like India needs more than 1500 Universities – we have just above 400 many of which are below par – and more than a hundred thousand colleges, of which we have just above one-third irrespective of the standards. And this is what the Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda had observed during the first UPA government, and the report is gathering dust now. Instead of bureaucratising the system more,we need to liberalise it further for more players to come in and provide education at various levels of quality and costs, with the minimum standards assured (applicable to both private and public education systems).
A large nation like India needs more than 1500 Universities – we have just above 400 many of which are below par – and more than a hundred thousand colleges, of which we have just above one-third.
And, then we need widespread use of the digital medium at affordable costs without barriers to entry at both producer and consumer levels, to make education and training really mass based. Networked India will bring in education to the doorstep of even the low income groups. Using satellite technology, having a blended mode of educational delivery converging the online (internet) with offline (by courier) and on air (television-radio) and on ground (brick and mortar), we can create myriad ways of training the masses with low or no costs.
Broad-basing Education & Training
There need to be different models of education: degrees, diplomas, certificates; Substantive knowledge-based versus functional skill-based; Chronologically rising education versus any-time anywhere anyone training in a given skills-set; In a given physical space versus seamlessly converged mode; Low or no cost public education versus low cost charity based education versus high cost high involvement private education; Content driven learning versus marketing driven training; Higher goals learning versus immediately applicable vocational skills; Language-based education versus language neutral training.
Unfortunately, even the more urban and elite private higher education institutes are yet to wake up to the power of the digital and distance education. Forget taking the mainstay of education to the masses, there are well-entrenched limitations in education marketing using the digital medium.
Education marketing & social media
Last two to three years have drastically changed the techniques and tools of education marketing and promotions in India. And the larger brands are waking up to the new digital revolution in educational services marketing all of a sudden. It is almost a rude shock to many. Most education brands, the larger ones included, have been happy with full and half page ads, with faces of bosses, appearing in national dailies, and usually in English. That has been their ‘marketing effort’. Added to that, have been the media net route to get stories published by paying for the same, and participation in educational fairs and putting up huge outdoor hoardings.
The scene is very different today
All educational institutes now understand the power and the need of the New Media to reach out to its audiences. For example, the executive education focused on working professionals has almost exclusively gone into the internet and mobile mode. A few days back, XLRI announced an executive management training programme through the SMS route, as it can be discerning and focused on a specific audience. Many social networking portals are used to identify the network of similar needs professionals and such campaigns are pegged there for better results.
The portals focused on creating education domain specific communities, have become a major tool of marketing now for this sector. Minglebox.com, Shiksha.com, Studyplaces.com, HTcampus.com, educationtimes.com, etc are raking in the moolah and creating institute specific and domain specific platforms for networking with the youth online. We at ISB&M have also used these and Google to reach out to our audiences, and have got rich dividends in this admission season. Apart from ads on these portals, they have info-links and domain specific segments, and opportunities for conversation to happen between the site, the institutes and the users at large.
The best part of social media is its conversationalist non-hierarchical communication which makes information turn into a virtual buzz or viral.
Further, pagalguy.com has emerged in the last three to four years as a strong platform for online users among MBA aspirants. Though the forums need administrator’s intervention to avoid abusive language and the marketing potentials of it still can be much better leveraged, still this site is a strong platform for all B-school aspirants.
Spreading the buzz
Several institutes, including a few constituents of my last organisation, Symbiosis, have created alumni network portals to keep tab on job opportunities for working professionals, and also linking the alumni through an ongoing online conversation with current students for projects, internships, mentoring and counselling. Professional education increasingly will need to create such conversation routes alive for credible branding and industry positioning of its trainees.
On the other hand, negative campaigns, comments and posts by present and past students about some institutes have given rise to serious branding challenges for a few educational institutes. One known group of B-schools, name withheld, devised an e-brochure of positive testimonials of its current and past students with email ids and some cell numbers as well and uploaded the entire brochure and the individual testimonials selectively across various online platforms to generate a counter campaign while facing disgruntled elements making disparaging and blatant remarks on social media about the institute.
Often it has been seen that on-ground activities, like Unmaad of IIM Bengaluru, Xavotsov of St Xavier’s Kolkata, Media Pulse of ISBM School of Communication Pune, Y-Factor of NSHM Kolkata or Mood Indigo of IIT Mumbai and others, have been marketed to its audiences through the social media largely: by connecting link and landing pages to Facebook and Orkut communities created around that event or festival. These seamless blending of online campaign with on ground activation leads to a strong stake-holder driven buzz or viral which is good for the brand of the institute concerned.
Seeing is believing. One of the ways of promoting image is to upload videos made by students onto YouTube and other places, and create the institute’s own portal of video and photos for all times onto the virtual space. I have done it twice for two institutes so far.
The best part of social media is its conversationalist nonhierarchical communication which makes information turn into a virtual buzz or viral. The worst part of social media communication is that loads of rumour passes off as genuine information, and credibility of the source of a lot of information will always be under question.
Digital media: pros and cons
All things said and done, with flat organisations and flat mindsets becoming the norm, online conversation will gradually become the mainstay of many an educational branding in the days to come.
One of my educationist colleagues and an expert on Social Media, Prof ShyamaDutta, notes and I find it interesting to quote her here, “We are not yet using it as effectively as possible, because social media is treated as a urban vision. In fact if one looks at the entire treatment of visualisation and ideation in new media it is still very urban centric. However, the potential exists because by default it allows all opinions in it. The strongest way forward is because social media is now extensively integrated with 3G mobile technology, allowing it to transcend the urban walls. If we harness the existing technology along with social media, such aswebinars and the power of user-generated content, then we would find away”.
