Just three years ago, PersonalMBA founder Josh Kaufman declared MBAs “mostly a worthless piece of paper,” harsh words for students who are considering a career in business. But there’s good news. The latest Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) study indicates that MBA hiring is up, and in fact, 2012 was the best year for MBA employment since the recession hit.

MBAs are finding jobs once again, but they may not be where you’d expect. Increasingly, they’re headed to growth industries rather than Wall Street. Manufacturing, technology, and health care show particularly strong growth for MBA hires. In response, business schools are offering more specialized MBAs that cater to these industries and lead to career opportunities off the beaten MBA path.

Why a Specialized MBA?

A specialized MBA not only teaches general management principles, but also focuses on practices that are unique to a particular industry. Excelsior College School of Business and Technology dean Jane LeClair explains, “An MBA that provides for an industry specialization better prepares students for upward mobility by putting basic MBA principles into real-world context applicable to their chosen fields.”

Business schools have recognized that there’s an increased employer demand for specialized talent at the MBA level. In response, they’ve changed their offerings and curriculum to give graduates a competitive leg up in these growing industries. “(There’s a) growing need to address industry needs as more of the work force nears retirement,” said LeClair of the college’s Health Care Management and Technology Management MBA concentrations. As an example of a response to industry changes, Excelsior’s Technology Management and Health Care Management MBAs opened for enrollment in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

Manufacturing MBAs

Manufacturing is an overlooked industry for many business students, as it’s traditionally considered to be reserved for skilled workers doing manual labor. Contrary to popular belief, manufacturing has grown past its Industrial Revolution history of back-breaking labor. This is a changing field, one that has become more complex and technology-driven, and is in need of knowledgeable managers.

For decades, low-wage China was the go-to location for manufacturing, but work is coming back to the United States, thanks to cheap and abundant natural gas, intellectual property laws, and public policy. Hugh Welsh, President and General Counsel of DSM North America. reports that these factors, including U.S. innovation and human capital are bringing manufacturing work back to America and turning manufacturing into a fast growing industry. It’s no surprise, then, that four out of the 11 fastest-growing industries in 2013 are in manufacturing.

With all of this growth, managers are needed to make sense of supply chains, employment, and accounting. GMAC reports a 76% success rate overall for MBAs seeking manufacturing positions.

MBAs are a hot commodity in manufacturing, especially when coupled with a technical degree like engineering. MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program offers an engineering-MBA dual degree that allows graduates to pair management acumen with technical expertise. LGO director of operations and partner integration Joshua Jacobs believes this degree gives students the resources they need to be successful in a technical manufacturing setting. “With this background, our students bring the ability to drive change in large manufacturing organizations, in areas such as lean transformation, supply chain and logistics, sourcing, new product introduction, and quality. LGO graduates have a technical credibility that allows them to lead within engineering-focused organizations,” says Jacobs.

Hot Jobs for Manufacturing MBAs

Graduates of MIT’s LGO program have been offered jobs with industry giants including Amazon, Boeing, and Caterpillar. Other major employers include Deloitte, Emerson Process Management, and Amgen.

Hot jobs for manufacturing MBAs are in the fields of project management, business analysis, and supply chain management. In these positions, manufacturing MBAs pair technical knowledge with management know-how. Industrial production managers oversee manufacturing and plant operations, coordinating, planning, and directing the activities necessary to create goods. Supply chain managers, or logisticians, analyze and coordinate the supply chains of organizations. And business analysts explore new paths in efficiency and profitability.

Online MBA Programs in Manufacturing

These accredited business schools offer online MBA degree programs with concentrations/specializations in manufacturing:

• University of Scranton Online MBA in Operations Management: Learn how to make operations run smoothly in a manufacturing environment with this online program from the University of Scranton. Courses focus on project and quality management, and help students build both technical knowledge and business skills.
• Southern New Hampshire University MBA in Operations & Supply Chain Management: Southern New Hampshire’s online program in operations and supply chain management offers a pathway to upper-level positions in manufacturing, including operations, production, and distribution. With this degree, you’ll better understand how procurement, planning, and management work in the big picture.

Health Care MBAs

Health care needs MBAs now more than ever before. With an aging population, medical costs on the rise, and new reform, medicine is an industry full of growth and transition, and MBAs can help with new challenges. Hospitals and health care providers are trying to cut costs while still delivering good care. Health care costs have increased an average of 2.5% more than the U.S. GDP since 1970. That rate shows no signs of slowing down, but MBAs have the knowledge to make it happen.

Doctors and nurses provide health care, but MBAs make hospitals work. Medical professionals often take a reactive approach to work, focusing on providing the best care to the patient they’re seeing for the next 15 to 30 minutes. That’s effective for individual patients, but MBAs are necessary for proactive thinking. Health care needs MBAs to consider the big picture and long term goals, like maximizing preventive care and patient efficiency.

With a health care MBA, graduates are prepared to take on one of the most intricate and dynamic industries in the world. “(Health care’s) growing scope and complexity fuel demand for leaders with both business acumen and keen industry insight,” explains Duke University associate dean for career management Sheryle Dirks. LeClair agrees. “Given recent health care reform legislation and the attendant tiered implementation efforts, for organizations to survive this rapidly changing environment, it is important to plan strategically both for the change and to maintain the standards of quality, cost controls, and effectiveness,” she said.

Health care MBA programs prepare students for careers in senior-level health care management. In many programs, students are able to learn from a multi-pronged approach that represents the needs of health care today. That’s evident in programs like the Duke Health Care Sector MBA, which offers students an interdisciplinary approach to learning that leverages the university’s capabilities in business education, research, and clinical care. Students work closely with faculty, industry leaders, and providers to explore health care’s most pressing issues through a multi-faceted lens.”

Hot Jobs for Health Care MBAs

Major employers for Health Care MBAs include hospitals and large health organizations, as well as biomedical startups and pharmaceutical research and development. A third of Kaiser Permanente‘s 16,000 to 18,000 new positions each year are in management and operations. Hospital Corporation of America is the largest private operator of health care facilities in the world, and targets new MBAs with a special executive development program. Biotech giant Amgen is eager to hire management grads as well with an MBA Leadership Program and summer internships.

Many graduates of health care MBA programs are also finding that their degree opens options beyond major health care organizations. “Students are reflecting a trend of choice: they are choosing to move from a corporate atmosphere to a more altruistic, people-centered atmosphere,” says LeClair.

Popular jobs for health care MBA graduates include hospital management and administration, health care financial management, and health services management. Hospital administrators make sure that facilities provide the best, most efficient care possible. This career is believed to be among the best jobs in America. Financial managers may find more opportunity in health care organizations than Wall Street, as hospitals are becoming competitive in hiring financial managers who oversee patient billing, health care value, and profitability.

Online MBA Programs in Healthcare

These AACSB-accredited business schools offer online MBA degree programs with concentrations/specializations in health care:

• Northeastern University Online MBA Healthcare Management Specialization: Northeastern University’s healthcare management MBA encourages students to understand the business of health care not just today, but throughout history, educating the next generation of health care reform leaders.
• George Washington University Healthcare MBA Online: This two year online program combines a traditional MBA program with 12 elective classes that explore management in nearly every health care setting, including hospitals, physician practices, and skilled nursing facilities.

Technology MBAs

Technology has allowed us to store and search the entirety of human knowledge. It’s allowed us to reach the moon and build a national highway system. These feats don’t happen without scientists and engineers, but they don’t happen without effective management, either. This industry needs professionals with technical know-how to dream up the ideas that can develop into these major human accomplishments, but also need managers that can follow through to make dreams and ideas a reality. Innovation is everywhere, and technology is not just a field for scientists and programmers anymore. Managers are needed to turn big ideas into real, concrete products and services.

There’s big business in technology, reaching practically every industry in the world from education to communications and manufacturing. Business and technology are increasingly intertwined, and organizations need leaders that can understand both. Business professionals in the tech world can offer insight into cost, customers, and trends. MBAs can guide startups and bring business sense to scientific minds. There’s no end to the potential value that management professionals can bring to technology, whether they’re working on government contracts or growing companies from the dorm room to the board room.

Technology, and the high tech industry in particular, is growing three times faster than other areas of the private sector in the United States. MBAs who haven’t thought of technology as a career choice should think again: the technology industry has grown rapidly in recent decades, and data indicates that there’s still room for plenty more.

High tech businesses realize the value of MBAs in their organizations, so it’s no wonder that there’s a 22% growth in hiring MBAs, and a 70% success rate for job offers among MBAs pursuing technology positions. Even for currently working technology professionals, an MBA can open up doors to new areas of IT, or even allow a tech MBA to climb the ladder to CIO or CTO. And this climb can happen practically anywhere, as 98% of U.S. counties have at least one high tech business establishment.

Technology MBAs allow graduates to take on managerial positions in tech fields, bringing life to innovations and maximizing the potential of new and existing technology. MBA grads in this field “know how to effectively integrate and manage technology within an organization and understand the strategic management principles that need to be applied to develop, implement and overcome the challenges associated with innovative technology and change,” says LeClair of the school’s Technology Management MBA.

Hot Jobs for Technology MBAs

Graduates of technology MBA programs often go on to work for major employers including Microsoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Google, but there are also exiting opportunities in growing startups and incubators.

Technology management MBA grads are often currently-working tech professionals seeking promotion in the field. With this degree, they can move up to positions including systems management, systems analysts, and even IT directors or chief technology officers (CTO). Systems managers determine the information technology goals of an organization and oversee the work of the IT department. Chief technology officers focus on the scientific and technological issues of an organization at the executive level.

Online MBA Programs in Information Technology

These accredited business schools offer online MBA degree programs with concentrations/specializations in information technology:

• SUNYIT Online MBA in Technology Management: State University of New York’s Institute of Technology offers a completely online technology management program. This degree brings management essentials together with a focus on technology in today’s work environment.
• Capella University Online MBA in Information Technology Management: Capella University’s IT management MBA program recognizes the expanded use of information technology throughout the world, and especially in business. With this degree program, students can develop skills in both business and technological advancement.
• In addition to Technology Management MBAs, traditional MBAs from schools with a tech focus like Stanford and MIT allow students to earn an MBA in the heart of tech entrepreneurship hubs.

MBA careers are more competitive now than ever before. In recent years, we’ve seen an a record jump in the number of MBA graduates, and companies just aren’t hiring MBAs like they used to. But top management talent can hedge against this competition by pursuing specialized programs in growth industries that go beyond the typical MBA track. Consider what an MBA in a growth industry can do for your career.

This article was originally published on OnlineMBA.com

After studying Theatre Direction in London, Jehan Manekshaw returned to India in search of a purpose. A few years later, he is bringing world standards to theater in India. This July he and his team are starting Mumbai’s first full-fledged Drama School. Jehan is an example of the ethos and pedagogy that infuses his school: in order to work in the performing arts, one must not just be an actor but a theatre-maker—an actor-creator-entrepreneur.

You perform and make theatre every day. An hour of working to creating small performance pieces that you present to the faculty every week. DSM’s Performance Lab provides for continuous application of training, you learn, by doing. Always. Listen to one of our participants talk about how they learn from the Performance Lab.

Enter Jehan.

One of the most difficult days in my life had to be the day I boarded an Air India flight from London back to Delhi. I had just finished a two year course Training as a theatre director and producer, and spent the additional work experience year on my visa doing two things: making theatre in an environment full of actors, technicians, producers, whom I could collaborate effectively and to great result with, using the skills I had learned in college; and, interviewing at a thousand jobs in the Theatre to see if one of them would convert to a job, and a more importantly, a work-permit so I could spend my time in this rich environment of professional theatrical practice.

I was distraught. I had spent the 8 of the last 10 years of my life in the UK and US, studying and working in places where professional practice and a sector existed. I had no idea how my MFA and BA in theatre direction were every going to translate into a career back home in India. Where the notion of “creative industries” was unheard of. It took me some time to come to terms with my new reality, but having got over my unhappiness (and to some extent, my own perceptions about myself), I started to look around, to see what it was exactly that I could do.

After touring to meet a number of companies, and talking to many people, I realized, that there was actually an extremely rich vein of theatre practice across the country, and in terms of content, depth of practice, ability, India had it all. It’s just that it all existed in isolated pockets of practice, at best, you could say Theatre as a sector, existed like a cottage industry, its ‘fairs’ being the three or four major theatre festivals each year, at which the same plays by the same companies were being seen. Its best practices, lay behind the walls of institutions, that, while doing good work, were inaccessible to many, for example, the National School of Drama, which has 25 seats a year, and caters to regional quotas (being the nations premier institution).

In the meantime, in the city itself, there were a multitude of performers and actors, and people who love and want to do theatre. (Drama incidentally comes from the Latin, Dram, drm; it means “to do”).  These people were creating work, either on the stages of Prithvi, the NCPA, or through vernacular companies, all of whom picked up what little they could, through workshops by local actors, or learnt by getting cast in amateur plays, and gleaning what they could from either their directors, or the more seasonedactors around them.

We needed a new platform, upon which to hone skills, pick up the rigor, focus, and commitment, which is required when learning the craft of acting, and could deliver learning in a structured manner in line with the more evolved pedagogical methods of the west.  But, it wasn’t simply about creating this space for formal training in acting and theatre making to fulfill this need.  It was also creating a School, which would call upon these rich practices that existed across the country, and create a platform in which knowledge dissemination, using methods and techniques from Kallari, Koodiyattom, and Manipuri could co-exist with Greek Chorus, Stanislavsky, and Commedia. A place where actors could, through exploration and tutelage in all these forms, not develop a mastery of them (that takes a lifetime), but absorb the fundamental principals, and through experiencing them evolve a new, contemporary understanding of the fundamental tools of the actor, conditioning of the breath and voice, use of the body, and the imagination.

But is it enough to create an actor? I don’t think so; the last thing a school should create is the out-of-work actor. It’s important to create theatre-makers as well. So while you can keep struggling to look for a job, under a director or get cast in a film, you also have the ability to make your own theatre.  That’s where the joy of theatre lies, its to revel in the act of creation, the act of storytelling, its about having something to say about something you believe in, and having a burning need to share it with the world, your audience, (in a manner that entertains, absorbs and involves them).  It’s important, that any one who is studying performance, is also empowered and enabled to be the authors of their own work.

And is it enough to create the actor-creator? Especially if they are going to have this formal training, and the sensibilities of a creator? To then be cast into a sector which I characterized at the top of this as being a cottage industry? This is why, any Drama School in India today, needs to also cultivate the entrepreneurial frame of mind. To understand what it takes to produce something, market something, imagine an idea and create a workable plan that will evolve from an idea in their heads of what kind of sector they want to work in, and to confidently embark on this ultimate act of creating something where nothing existed before.  When Tasneem Fatehi and I created Theatre Professionals in 2008, it was with an aim to do exactly this for ourselves, create a space in which we could be professional Theatre Practitioners, and earn a living from Theatre in whatever way imaginable. Its been a great journey where we now have Drama instructors who earn a living teaching Drama in 22 Schools, directors and choreographers who work on annual day productions in schools, facilitators for corporate workshops, and a team of professional faculty from across the country, regularly conducting training for actors (this year, we embark on creation our own productions as well, two of them, through the school). All of our team work in the Theatre, earn a living from the theatre, and consider themselves theatre professionals. There are now 40 of us, and we live, breath, dream Theatre.  There are so many sectors that have formalized, organized and become professional here in the last seven years, the “creative industry” is now a reality, and its now the turn of Theatre to do the same. But just our one organization, will never make this dream of a formal, professional sector a reality; it will take a whole new generation of Actor-Creator-Entrepreneurs to do this. The Drama School, Mumbai is our first, and the best step, we can take towards this.

To finish the story I started with; last week at a wedding here in India, I had the good fortune to meet all of my friends from the UK, who had come down for it; the same ones who said goodbye to a very distraught and unhappy individual at Paddington Station. Time folded in on itself, the last seven years reducing to a moment (as it does at such reunions). The common consensus, starting a career in Theatre in India was the best thing that ever happened to me, and they were right.

To apply to the Drama School, visit http://thedramaschoolmumbai.in.

About the Author:

Jehan Manekshaw is the Founder Director of Theatre Professionals.

Since founding Theatre Professionals in 2008, Jehan has conducted numerous workshops for professional actors, children, and corporates. He has evolved a number of methodologies and a strong process for identifying how to best utilize drama practices for the learning and development of any participant group. Jehan has taught at the Ninasam Theatre Institute, Attakallari Dance School, Shinshu University, Matsumoto and curated and led the Intensive Drama Program over its four year evolution.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

Dr. Aditya Dev Sood, Chairman of the new Adianta School for Leadership, does not mince his words when speaking about the education system in India. “We have a situation where everyone knows the system is dysfunctional – yet there is an unreasonable attachment to the system! No one wants to shout out that the emperor has no clothes.”

The Indian school system is well known for its adherence to rote-learning techniques and an exam-based system. This might produce teenagers who can rapidly compute startlingly large sums in their head – but it does not encourage an “innovation society.” Standardized textbooks do not provide room for students to ask “why,” and creative expression often takes a back seat to recitation. In any context, the Adianta School would be novel, but in India, it is nothing short of revolutionary.

The Adianta School for Leadership, located in New Delhi, has designed its curriculum around the three pillars: Innovate, Build, Lead. Each pillar is divided into three categories, creating a 9-unit grid that integrates theory and practicality. The structure of the classes grew organically out of Dr. Sood’s experience with his consulting company, and the immediate, on-the-job training given to new recruits. In these classes, students not only learn the basics of business – how to conduct market research or implement growth strategies – they are immediately exposed to the lifestyle of an entrepreneur through project-based learning. The idea is not to eliminate lectures and seminars, but to drastically reduce the amount of time students spend listening, and increase the amount of time they spend doing.

Students might find themselves tasked with reconstructing the Profit and Loss statement of a street entrepreneur in the informal market. They must speak with these individuals, learn where they sources materials come from, piece out their daily revenue, and work with them to construct this statement. In another class, students compete in teams as potential start-ups and venture capitalists, learning not only the specifics of these fields, but negotiation, as well. Students will also learn the necessity of innovation through ethnographic projects that require them to visit another section of society – rural villages and urban slums – and design, create, and test different prototypes to improve conditions in these areas.

Such projects force students to learn intangible (and crucial) skills such as time management and delegation. Teamwork and competitive cooperation are important learning tools; teachers are not “repositories of knowledge”, they are facilitators and mentors.

Conferences and internships are integrated into the curriculum and provide practical forums to present what they’ve learned and apply it. Adianta has built relationships with companies to ensure its students are able to transfer their classroom experience to the real world.

What is left to be seen is how Adianta can change the tone for education in India at large. For too long education has been thought of as something that happens to us, not something with which we can engage, alter, or experiment, and Adianta offers a new paradigm for learning. In a country with such steep inequalities in education, however, where so few children actually make it to college and beyond, the Adianta model needs to permeate throughout the system. As a formalized postgraduate program, the benefits of this innovative and groundbreaking approach will be enjoyed by a privileged few. It is absolutely crucial, however, for India to adopt these lessons and to regard creativity and innovation as important aspects of an education. Without this shift, India’s youth will not be able to compete with rapidly-changing, technology based markets, or the global entrepreneurs who drive them.

About the Author:

Originally from Boston, Alisha relocated to Mumbai after college to follow her passion for education and work for an NGO in the city. A graduate of Northwestern University, she holds a Bachelors of Science in Social Policy and Creative Writing. Although she loves Mumbai in all of its chaos, she is excited to be leaving soon to pursue a Masters from the London School of Economics.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

Radha Utnoor, a 37-year old cook and domestic helper goes to five different homes in Girgaum. A single mother of two, the lady is uneducated and was forced to marry when she was 16. She has often said she feels angry that her parents didn’t let her finish schooling and arranged her marriage very early to a man whom she didn’t know. Radha says her mother’s defence is that they were too poor to take on the burden of three growing girls.

After marriage, Radha moved into an 8-foot room, at a row house in the prime area of Mumbai city, opposite Charni Road station. This line of row houses is just outside Hinduja College, a daily inspiration for Radha to send her children there. Like most migrant labourers, Radha took to the easiest job that she knew—to cook, wash vessels and clean a house—as a domestic worker.

As soon as she got two children, she had resolved to send her children to English medium schools but her family wasn’t in favour. Radha’s estranged husband was, in fact, dead against educating the children. Her husband felt that educating his children was a waste and wanted them to begin work. Radha bravely fought to enrol them in English schools.

Like Radha, there are scores of domestic helpers, cooks and menial paid workers who believe that English education is the tool for progress and betterment. According to Maharashtra government statistics, there are 30 lakh domestic workers the state. There are more than 11,300 domestic workers registered with some union or organisation.  Ghar Kamgar Molkarni Sanghatana leader, Babli, corroborates the fact that domestic workers prefer to enrol their children in English medium schools rather than in Marathi or Hindi schools.

Babli says that over 60 percent of children of domestic workers have been enrolled in English medium schools. Though not many first generation learners pursue higher studies, these families still have a strong belief that English will help their children get better jobs than washing vessels. Babli, on the other hand, believes that this is just the marketing of neo-capitalism.  But apart from aspirations, which all have, the fact that companies prefer English-speaking workers is clearly reflected in the better job profile, higher salary category and better career mobility of these candidates.

Even though parents are unable to teach English at home or even understand it, parents like Radha have stood by their belief. Just because they were deprived of a good education, are their children bound to the same fate? Convent schools play a large role in ensuring this is not the case, promoting a mission of equality and fairness in society.  The fact that many children of domestic workers are enrolled in convent schools seems to be helping.

It is still not easy for domestic workers. Since their children are first generation learners, not all of them live in conducive learning environments. Many women face abuse and often, this violence is endured by children as well. The unions and schools, especially convents, are working to address this issue through constant interaction with parents and by giving special attention to the children.

Domestic workers incur more expenses as they need to hire tuition teachers, but in Mumbai especially, domestic workers are helped by their employers, according to labour unions. Working in good homes obviously helps the workers to aspire for a better life for their children, inculcating the belief that speaking English opens many doors.

One would tend to believe that eventually there will be a time when there won’t be workers doing menial jobs. However, Anjali Kanitkar, Associate Professor at College of Social Work says that will take many more years. There will always be a turnover of domestic workers, as many migrate to cities for a better living. According to the unions in this sector, every month they get enrolments in double digits. There are still immense disparities in India and a formal education, as it is, doesn’t seem yet to be an adequate equalizer.

About the Author:
Neeta Kolhatkar

Neeta Kolhatkar is a senior journalist with over 20 years experience reporting on various sectors and issues. She gives a candid report on the realities that exist in our society.

“My boarding school education had a lot of focus on sports and extra-curricular activities. Sports played a big role in shaping my character and help me deal with many problems and difficulties including the early demise of my father. Since then, sports has stayed with me throughout my life. Though never a real competitive sportsman, I played all sports whenever there was a chance and it helped me make friends, relieve stress, connect to colleagues and peers in a unique manner.”

Project K.H.E.L. (Kids Holistic Education and Life-skills) is among the few initiatives in India that use sports as a medium for empowerment. We caught up with Akshai Abraham, the Founder and Volunteer CEO of the organisation to know more about his idea and Project KHEL.

Project KHEL: The Model

KHEL is a synergistic mix of “Sports for Development” and “Life-skills Education” approaches. A unique program which helps children from disadvantaged backgrounds grow into responsible and contributing members of society.

We partner with organisations working with orphans, street children, slum children, village children, children in shelters and children of migrant and domestic labour. Working with these children does not mean a one-time or short duration interaction. We ensure that it is a bi-weekly interaction, over at least a 4 month period so that children get the full benefit of the programme.

The sessions are based on experiential and activity-based learning models where the children are encouraged to discover and express the learning from the session on their own through a discussion at the end of each session.

The sessions help children develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, build their sense of personal worth and agency, and teach them to interact with others constructively and effectively. In addition, we also conduct special thematic sessions on issues such as health, sanitation, substance abuse, personal hygiene, civic sense, and sexual abuse.

Project KHEL: The vision

Since July 2012, we have worked with over 400 children with 6 partner organisations in Lucknow and nearby villages. The vision is to expand operations across Uttar Pradesh (initially) moving into rural areas and then across India. This would give us a huge network of beneficiaries and KHEL can then become a platform for various development messages targeted for children and youth.

I believe in the power of collaboration and working with the strengths of others. Already, Project KHEL works with partners for its programme instead of duplicating efforts. After scaling the programme we would have a huge number of children enrolled and interacting with us regularly so if, for example, an organization wants to reach out to adolescent girls for awareness on personal hygiene – we would be able to provide that platform of target beneficiaries.

Project KHEL thus goes beyond sports to achieve goals in health, education, gender equality, child protection, vocational training and life skills.

Volunteering at Project KHEL

I have been a volunteer for varied causes and believe that it really adds value to one’s growth and life experiences. At KHEL, we have only 2 full time employees but several part-time and volunteer coordinators, coaches and founder members.

For a young organisation, we get quite a few requests for volunteering. An important part of KHEL is establishing a relationship between coordinators and children. Our volunteers are part of the KHEL family – they are featured on our website, we do events together, we go out for movies, meals etc.

As Franziska Litwinski (or Franky didi as she is fondly called by the children), a German student who volunteered with us for 5 months says “we shared moments of uncontrolled laughter, of long conversations, of comfortable silences, but also faced difficulties, misunderstandings, bad moods, uncertainty – only to make up again. I learnt a lot, especially crucial things about myself, mostly things I am yet to implement and work on.”

You can read our volunteer’s blog posts at projectkhel.com/blog.

Anyone looking for an extremely fun and fulfilling volunteering opportunity (just a few hours per week but long term commitment – at least 4-6 months) is most welcome. Our volunteers learn a lot about themselves while interacting with children in a totally fun manner.

Crowdfunding

As a start-up with less than one year of operations, we are constantly struggling for funds. However, in the absence of institutional funding, our work seems to speak for itself and we have a lot of support from individuals who identify with what we do. Crowdfunding is a concept which we have embraced not just as a medium to raise funds but also as a means to involve more people in our cause and make us accountable to them. We have also found that many think that their small contributions will not be enough, but in fact, people have donated amounts as small as Rs.100 or 200 and we are appreciative of all the small contributions as they all add up. At present, we are coming to the end of a campaign on an Indian crowdfunding platform (www.wishberry.in/Join-the-KHEL-15933). With just about 10 days left, we are hopeful to achieve our target as it is in the last few days of the campaign that people see their contributions making the gap between “amount raised” and “target” smaller.

If you are in Lucknow, we recommend you visit Project KHEL and the amazing work they are doing; but remotely you can also help by spreading awareness about their work; engaging on their facebook page and raising funds through their crowd-funding campaign at Wishberry. 

Akshai Abraham

Akshai is an MBA from the prestigious Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He has over 7 years of experience including 6 years in the social sector in the areas of research, program development, project management and organization building and also a year’s international experience as a cultural exchange intern in Austria. Akshai has also worked as a Consultant with AMS Consulting, where he was primarily involved with social sector studies commissioned by international agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, UNICEF, etc. and also with Aide-et-Action, an international NGO where he worked in fund-raising and education development programmes. A keen sportsman and enthusiast, and a committed non-profit professional, Akshai’s vision is to impact the lives of underprivileged children and youth of India through KHEL.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

Last year’s demonstrations in Chile and Colombia are a cause for major concern for their respective governments. At the center of the debate there is a very simple question for which there is not an easy answer: who is supposed to pay for the provision of education for the inhabitants of a country? The citizens themselves and their families, or the state? Is a direct subsidy to the students the best approach, or should institutions be subsidized in order to make education more affordable?

In both the Chilean and Colombian cases, there have been in somewhat different paths taken in matters related to the development of their respective higher-education systems, but both are experiencing similar situations in terms of strikes and public student demonstrations, which make not only their respective governments nervous but also those from neighboring countries.

In the case of Chile, massive liberalization of the higher-education system in recent years with limited public investment has led to impressive growth of the national higher-education infrastructure and to a significant increase in the number of Chileans having access to higher education (currently, 51 percent of college-age inhabitants), mostly due to the increased offerings by private institutions. In order to support such growth, the government has allowed higher-education institutions to charge high tuition and fees while establishing a public/private financial-aid mechanism in order to make education affordable to the majority of students. At the same time, the government kept a selective merit-based full tuition waiver scholarship for students having the highest scores in a national standardized admission test. In addition, the government maintained a subsidy scheme to a small group of public and private institutions who were members of the Council of Rectors (CRUCH for its acronym in Spanish).

Despite these efforts, growth in Chilean higher education has not been exempt from problems. A prominent issue that has emerged is that the great majority of Chileans having access to higher education finish their studies with significant debt, while the generous tuition-waiver scholarship tends to benefit students who come from better-off families who previously attended private high schools. In other words, it seems like taxpayer resources are used to subsidize those in less need, while the majority of Chileans assume a proportionally higher burden in order to pursue university studies. Finally, in recent years a variety of for-profit higher-education institutions have emerged. Although these institutions are properly accredited and offer an educational quality similar to other universities, they have become a natural target of demonstrators.

The Colombian case is somewhat different: a smaller and even more selective higher-education system has not grown at the same pace as the nation’s demographic trends, and every year there are about 600,000 students graduating high school out of which only a small portion advances to the higher-education system. Concerned with such a challenge, the government decided to embrace a major reform aimed at massively increasing the number of students in higher education from 37 percent to an ambitious 50 percent enrollment of college-age students by the year 2014. In order to finance such growth, the government of President Santos initially entertained the idea of allowing the presence of private, for-profit providers. However, due to pressure from different sectors concerned with the implications of privatization of higher education, the government decided to drop the idea from a proposed law being discussed by the national Congress.

For some sectors of our societies the answer is simple: education is a basic human right – therefore governments (and taxpayers) should bear the cost of the provision of higher education while offering it at minimum or no cost to students regardless of their socio-economic status. Also, many argue that admission policies should become more flexible and that massive public investment should be dedicated to finance infrastructure and operations in public higher-education institutions. On the contrary, other sectors consider that such an approach is just not sustainable in the long run, and that rather than directly subsidizing institutions, governments should make available scholarships and loans directly to the students based on a combination of economic need and academic merit. Also they argue that participation of private providers of education–including for-profit entities–should be permitted to foster competition and improve efficiency, assuming that they are properly regulated.

Those are some of the issues being debated not only in Chile and Colombia, but also in many other countries. As my colleague Dewayne Matthews of the Lumina Foundation tells me, the challenge faced by many countries is how to provide quality education to much larger numbers of students knowing that increasing institutional capacity is not something that can be achieved quickly, especially in a time of finite financial resources. In these cases, governments investing in education may be required to de-invest in other equally important priorities. Also, it is becoming clear that implementing reforms will necessarily affect the status-quo in higher education systems. In summary, we face a complex reality for which no simple solutions exist.

At the end of the day, the social unrest experienced in Chile and Colombia brings the discussion to the fundamental question that societies face in today’s world: Is higher education a public or a private good? Consequently, who should pay for it? La moneda está en el aire.

This article was originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education at the following URL: http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/who-should-pay-for-education/28784

Francisco Marmolejo is the Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC), a network of more than 130 colleges and universities primarily from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Francisco also serves as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs at the University of Arizona and has taught at several universities and has published extensively on administration and internationalization. Marmolejo has consulted for universities and governments in different parts of the world, and has been part of OECD and World Bank peer review teams conducting evaluations of higher education in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

I believe in the idea behind 1 Billion Rising, but I can’t help wondering: what change will we have effected tomorrow?

When I first heard about 1 Billion Rising, I was very excited about it. My first exposure to women empowerment and ending violence against women came by watching a performance of the Vagina Monologues in the US (written and directed by Eve Ensler who also founded V-Day). Since that moment 3 years ago, I have performed two monologues from the Vagina Monologues in India for fundraisers for the Mumbai Pride March. However, when asked to write about my perspective on today’s global movement, I was unsure what to write about. It seems trite and bland to say that it’s a “good effort” to mobilize women and men around the world to rise against violence against women. Of course I support female equality and ending violence against women. But what can I really do to promote it? Will dancing in a public space and “rising” with women and men from across the world help this cause?

Since I could not come up with an answer for myself, I called up a close friend of mine, who is Indian (this was especially important to me, since even though I have been living in India for the past 18 months, I felt like I needed the perspective of someone who is from here). My friend is currently acting in a film where she plays the role of a rape victim, and the film is about the different ways in which women are oppressed. She also recently wrote an article [link http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/30/world/asia/misogyny-india] for CNN in response to the Delhi gang rape case. Here are the highlights from our conversation:

It’s a good movement, certainly a noble cause, but do women across India connect with it? 

I did a quick unscientific survey on some of my friends’ knowledge about 1 Billion Rising, and the only friends who knew about it fell into 3 categories: they are either highly educated, expatriates, or feminist activists. So, even my group of friends who is more connected to the web (where most of the advertising for 1 Billion Rising has been done) have very little awareness about the cause. Now imagine the rest of India–most of India–who has very little access to the internet. Are they involved in the movement? Do they feel like it resonates with them? I have no definitive answers on this, but my sense is that the majority of people are not yet connected to the movement.

Rallying the masses to join for one cause…is this cause bringing people together?

Last month we saw India stand in outrage against rape and violence towards women triggered by the Delhi rape case. For weeks on end, people manifested themselves in the streets and made their voices heard. Somehow though, although one could potentially have expected V-Day to be used as an avenue to continue these manifestations, the people I have spoken to do not see a connection between the two. (And perhaps that is because there is little awareness about V-Day to begin with; or perhaps it’s because I have a limited sample of people). In any case, the point is that the Delhi gang rape case brought people together to stand against rape and violence towards women, but I am not sure whether V-Day/1 Billion Rising has managed to rally people with the same intensity.

Dancing is universal and a celebration, but is it the best medium to effect change?

My friend put it beautifully when she said that there is something universal about music and dance that brings people together, and in that sense it’s fitting that one of the uniting threads of V-Day is dance. But tomorrow, when it is over, will us dancing on Bandstand have made a difference to ending violence against women? Is it the best medium?

I know that the solutions to end violence against women are manifold and they tackle multiple causes, and therefore there is never going to be one “right” answer. I believe that awareness about the issue is certainly an important component of it, and V-Day and 1 Billion Rising are an excellent effort in that direction. For me, though, reflecting on V-Day makes me wonder about what it is going to take to systematically and profoundly change behaviors, attitudes, and even cultures.

1 Billion Rising is, at the end of the day, a great step in raising awareness about violence being done to women. And, as my friend said, no effort goes by unnoticed, and this is a cause that we should all be concerned with and we should all be promoting. The challenge ahead lies in taking today’s inspiration and translating it into specific actions that will help us build a more equal society. The challenge is in connecting the cause to people of all genders, and across different sections of society. The challenge is in us viewing it as a common problem, not just a women’s problem. The challenge lies in what happens after 1 Billion of us rise today.

About the Author

Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Karen moved to Bombay in June 2011 to join Mahindra as a Global Recruit.  As a member of the Corporate Brand Council, she works on internal and external brand engagement campaigns, such as Spark the Rise. She graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York with a B.A. in Political Science.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

Like most people in the field, I became involved in international education mostly by accident. Born and raised in Ojuelos de Jalisco, a small rural town in central Mexico (also known among friends as “the capital of the world” in an attempt to boost our self-esteem), I never imagined that someday I would be spending most of my time traveling the world to learn about the similarities and peculiarities of higher education from a policy and operational perspective.

My first formal introduction to international higher education occurred back in Mexico more than 20 years ago when I was working as Vice President at the University of the Americas, a private higher education institution located in Mexico City. There I met a professor, Todd Fletcher, and a top administrator, Celestino Fernandez, from the University of Arizona who were visiting our institution. They made me aware of the great opportunities to participate in international exchanges that could be made available to our students. I bought into the concept of international exchanges as they presented it very easily since I personally experienced the positive impact of leaving my own  “comfort zone” when, as a 12-year-old,  I traveled from my hometown to another city in order to attend middle school. It was clear to me that providing an international experience to students would make a great difference in their lives and, in the long run, in the communities in which they would live and work.

As it turned out, I myself was one of the first individuals to “go on exchange” to the University of Arizona.  After that first encounter with the UA visitors, I began organizing a reciprocal visit for the President of the Universidad de las Américas to Tucson. To my surprise, she asked me to join her for the visit even though she knew that my English was very rudimentary. It would be my first visit to the United States and I was really excited, but much more nervous. Fortunately, Tucson is a very bilingual community, as is the University of Arizona, which made me feel at home. Nevertheless, I made the usual mistakes such as asking for “soap” at a restaurant or assuming that the abbreviation “Dr.” in the name of a street was in honor of a Doctor rather than referring to a “drive.” In the event it would be needed, I had memorized a short speech in English about the Universidad de las Américas. As it turned out, during the visit, I vividly remember a meeting at which the President of my university was discussing something with a group of UA faculty members (which, of course I could barely understand due to my limited English). Suddenly she turned to me to ask for an explanation. Totally confused, I reacted by repeating my short speech about the University. My President later told me that the question wasn’t about the subject of my speech but that in any case the information was useful.

Anyway, after this painful but exciting experience, I became captivated by the world of international education and realized how important it was to learn a second language. At the same time, I learned to recognize that when seeing higher education from an international perspective, we must properly value the important differences that exist among higher education systems rather than make simplistic assumptions about them from pre-conceived notions based on our own framework. It became very evident to me that the international dimension in higher education is not merely a luxury but a necessity in today’s world.  If a key role of higher education institutions is to prepare future graduates with adequate skills to work in an increasingly interconnected and furiously competitive world, while developing their sense of social responsibility to the local community in which they live, international education must be seen as central rather than marginal to the functions of our colleges and universities. Why doesn’t this happen?

The current state of affairs in international education is far from perfect. There are many issues to be addressed and challenges to be confronted, which I hope readers will be interested in discussing in this blog.

Let’s take this journey together.

Francisco Marmolejo is the Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC), a network of more than 130 colleges and universities primarily from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Francisco also serves as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs at the University of Arizona and has taught at several universities and has published extensively on administration and internationalization. Marmolejo has consulted for universities and governments in different parts of the world, and has been part of OECD and World Bank peer review teams conducting evaluations of higher education in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

In my travels to different parts of the world, I am stricken by how hierarchical national higher-education systems tend to be. This is reflected in the existence in most every country of what I refer to as “first-class higher-education citizens” (namely “Universities” or their equivalent) and second-class ones (which adopt other names including “Community College” in the U.S., “Technological University” in Mexico, “Technical Formation Center” in Chile, or “Technical College” in Egypt, just to name a few variations).  If you will indulge my hyperbole, a “title of nobility” is conferred by a four-year degree, while very little status is gained in the attainment of a two-year degree. In fact, in some countries a two-year program is simply not even considered a degree.

Paradoxically, it is widely known that graduates of two-year programs often go on to make more money than those who have obtained a bachelor’s degree, and that a substantial number of individuals who already hold a bachelor’s degree go back for re-training at a community college in order to increase their income and/or enhance their employability. At the same time, two-year colleges provide a more affordable option to underserved sectors of the population for whom higher education may otherwise not be possible. Despite this reality, two-year colleges struggle to be recognized as comparably important players in the higher-education arena.

When I mention, while traveling abroad, that in the U.S. almost half of freshman students in higher education are enrolled in a community college, I nearly always find that I surprise people. Even within the U.S., it is not widely known that more than 6.5 million students, representing 36 percent of the national higher-education population, are enrolled in a community college as indicated by the U.S. Department of Education as referenced in The Almanac of Higher Education. In a recent decade (1997-2007) enrollment in community colleges increased by 28 percent in contrast to the mere 19 percent increase at four-year colleges. In some states, like California, 6 out of 10 higher-education students are attending a community college. Evidently, affordability is an important factor considering that the average annual tuition and fees at a community college were only $2,402 in 2008-09, in comparison with the $6,545 to $25,143 range of averages at four-year institutions. It is not surprising that a greater proportion of minorities attend community colleges: 51 percent of Hispanics studying in undergraduate education programs are enrolled at a community college, while, at the same level, only 33 percent of white, non-Hispanics are. A final statistic which helps to illustrate the gap: the annual cost for instruction at a two-year public college is $2,608, while at a four-year public college this figure goes up to $7,082.

Unfortunately, under-appreciation for the contribution made by two-year degree-granting institutions exists not only in the U.S. but also abroad. In Mexico where I was recently invited to speak to the presidents of the Mexican two-year colleges (Technological Universities), at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Technological Universities (ANUT by its Spanish acronym) I heard that this is also the case. Among other important topics, the meeting discussed ways in which their institutions can become more internationalized.  By every indication, they are working seriously to achieve this ambitious goal by developing innovative partnerships with peer institutions from other parts of the world. Despite all their efforts, a major challenge they face has to do with the value placed by society on their degrees. The feeling amongst the Mexican public — parents and employers — seems to be that two-year degrees, known in Spanish as “Técnico Superior Universitario,” are not valuable or are somehow less so.

The time has come to seriously analyze the long-term ramifications of this significant perceptual and consequential dysfunction in higher education. Failing this, gaps, or the perception thereof, will persist and higher education will continue to be composed of first- and second-class institutions. Or is this by design — are we intending to prepare first- and second-class citizens?

This article was originally published here.

Francisco Marmolejo is the Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC), a network of more than 130 colleges and universities primarily from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Francisco also serves as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs at the University of Arizona and has taught at several universities and has published extensively on administration and internationalization. Marmolejo has consulted for universities and governments in different parts of the world, and has been part of OECD and World Bank peer review teams conducting evaluations of higher education in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The first time I stepped foot in India was just about two years ago, when I came to begin a summer research program in Bangalore. As soon as I finally made it out of the mess of people inside, the automatic doors opened, letting in both a wall of heat and the acoustics of what to my surprise was even more people frantically awaiting outside for those of us who were exiting. Strangely enough, this sea of family embraces transported me across the world to my own home in Mexico, to the point where I could have sworn that my own giant, loud and loving family would be waiting for me; little did I know that two years later, after being “hooked,” India would indeed be my new home, where I would be living full-time after college, working in bustling Mumbai.

To be honest, my contact with Indian culture truly began two years before that moment, when I arrived at college and met my new roommate (and now pretty much my brother) who happened to be from Mumbai. Sitting down with him and exchanging stories from our hectic graduation summers, I had no idea how great of friends we would become, and how big of a role he would play in “Indianizing” me. After watching many a Bollywood films together, and salivating at the thought of our spicy home foods, he convinced me to take some supplemental Hindi classes, and before I knew it, I was on the other side of the world stepping foot in Bangalore two years later.

I can’t express how much I learned during that summer, and keep on learning with every new day in Mumbai in the present. Sure I learned a great deal of science, but I learned so much more about the value of friendship, solidarity and warmth that makes India so much like home. My lab mates (as culturally diverse as India itself) became some of my best friends; one of them even became my climbing partner as we scaled the mountains from the countryside of Ram Nagram, where the ever-famous Sholay was filmed. More importantly, I was able to travel across the country, staying with local friends along the way, getting to know even more of this beautiful country. During a two week trip across India I got a taste of India’s diversity as I went from seeing the pristine green beauty of a monsoon-enveloped Maharastrian countryside with my roommate from college and his family, to staying in Lucknow and enjoying the warm company of my climbing partner’s family.

The summer was an amazing taste of the endless variety India has to offer, but the story of what my friends like to call the random Mexican in India changes with every new day in Mumbai. Be it the chance of plunging into Juhu beach for a Ganesh visarjan with my roommate’s family, the chance of working with India’s inspiring entrepreneurs through Mahindra’s Spark the Rise who have no shortage of innovation, tenacity, and a genuine hope for a better India, or simply the chance of improving my haggling skills in Hindi by getting in a weekly “heated” debate with some taxi-wala, India has offered a new world in every direction I look; a new world that has become another home.

This article was originally published here.

Author Bio:

Francisco Marmolejo Jr. traces his origins to San Luis Potosí, Mexico and though he grew up in Arizona, he now calls Mumbai, India home.  Currently an employee at Mahindra & Mahindra, he is working on corporate brand strategy while engaged in initiatives like Spark the Rise. He graduated from Harvard University with a major in Theoretical Mathematics and he enjoys rock climbing, playing guitar and reckless adventures.