P&G's Shiksha building 20+ schools across India

In India, nearly one out of two children does not go to school and 47 per cent of India’s habitation does not even HAVE a primary school.

We all hear alarming facts like these often and feel the urge to contribute within our means. P&G's signature CSR Program 'Shiksha' understands this national concern, and gives consumers a simple yet powerful way to participate in building India’s educational future.

Every time a consumer buys P&G products such as Tide, Ariel, Pampers, Whisper, Olay, Vicks, Gillette Oral-B, Head & Shoulders, Pantene and Duracell in the month of April, May & June, Shiksha contributes a portion of the proceeds towards children’s education.

Now in its 7th year, Shiksha is back with an even stronger commitment - to take its current impact of 150,0001 children to the 200,000 mark.

In 2010, Shiksha began building over 20 schools all across India, supported 100+ existing schools and aims to build at-least 20 more in the coming year.

This year, Bollywood megastar Rani Mukherji came on-board to extend her selfless support to Shiksha, encouraging consumers to help Shiksha lead more and more on the path to education.

Rani was delighted to hear that Shiksha is also building a school in her home state West Bengal and helped build a model for a play-school that will be presented to the children at Begampur High School.

At the Shiksha launch event Rani said “It’s truly commendable that with your support, Shiksha has been able to impact 150,000 children and begun building 20 schools across India. I am proud to be associated with Shiksha and felt very happy to be creating this playschool that will be built for the children at Begampur High School, West Bengal. I urge you to remember that the next time you walk into a store to shop for something basic like a shampoo, a toothbrush or a detergent - you can help educate a lesser-privileged child by making a simple brand choice.”

Present at the launch, Sharat Verma, Marketing Manager, P&G India said, ‘‘Shiksha is not just an initiative, but a passion that we as an organization strongly believe in. After touching the lives of 150,000 children, we are now helping build the future of India’s children “Brick by Brick” by building 20 schools this year and an aim to build another 20 in the coming year and take Shiksha’s impact to 200,000 children. After all, “Padhega India, tabhi toh Badhega India”

Shiksha has been successful in impacting 150,000 children thus far, in association with leading NGOs - Round Table India (RTI), Child Rights & You (CRY), Navy Wives Welfare Association (NWWA), Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) amongst others. NGO Round Table India is spearheading the identification, establishment, completion and maintenance of RTI Shiksha School projects in the country as a joint partner bringing onboard expertise in building schools as well as contribution towards funds.

P&G brands Tide, Ariel, Pampers, Whisper, Olay, Vicks, Gillette Oral-B, Head & Shoulders, Pantene and Duracell, contribute to Shiksha in the months of April, May and June. Shiksha channelizes a part of the proceeds from these sales towards educating underprivileged children. Irrespective of sales, P&G will commit a minimum of Rs 1 crore towards the donation funds of Shiksha every year. With a motto of ‘Padhega India, Badhega India’ - Shiksha believes that the secret to a brighter India lies in the quality education of our children.

Shiksha is an integral part of P&G's global philanthropy program - Live, Learn & Thrive - focused on the development of children in need across the globe, currently reaching over 50 million children. Launched in 2004, Shiksha has grown immensely and is today a National Consumer Movement with strong support from consumers. This year, P&G, through Shiksha will build more than 20 schools across the nation to give more children the invaluable gift of education with a focus to build more schools in the years to come.

Education Today: Now, you can take a loan to pay school fee

(Source: Economic Times) It's very likely that the fee your parents paid to educate you from kindergarten till graduation is less than the annual fee that you pay for your child's playschool today. In a metro city, a playschool can make you poorer by Rs 35,000-1 lakh a year, while primary and secondary education in a private school can cost between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh a year.

Paying such high fees could be a problem if you face a financial crisis, but there's no way you can remove your child from school, can you? Now, you can resolve this dilemma by simply stepping into a bank. Yes, banks have started offering education loans for children's school fees, a phenomenon that took off about a year ago.

Loan criteria

Earlier, education loans were offered only for professional courses. Now, you can take them to pay the school fee for classes ranging from nursery to senior secondary. The banks that offer this facility include public sector entities, such as Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, State Bank of Hyderabad and J&K Bank. The loan amount usually varies from Rs 30,000-1 lakh, but the Bank of Baroda has an upper limit of Rs 4 lakh. Though you don't need an account with these banks to avail of the facility, accountholders are given preference. As a senior official from the Central Bank of India affirms, "We will give a loan to a customer even if he does not have an account with us, but serving an existing customer will be our first priority." Another condition is that the school should be affiliated to ICSE, CBSE or any state education board.

The loan is primarily meant to fund the tuition fee, but it can also be used to pay for other expenses, such as buying a laptop or any apparatus that may be required for projects. However, in such a case, the equipment will remain in the bank's name as security till the total amount is paid.

Cost of loan

Another option to tide over the difficult period is taking a personal loan , but this comes with a high rate of interest, which ranges from 14-19% and can go up to 24% in certain situations. On the other hand, an education loan is available at 12-13%. Despite the fact that both are unsecured loans, the one for education is cheaper. If you are taking a loan to finance your daughter's education, you will be able to get an additional concession of 0.5-1% on the existing rate.

"Generally, education loans are based on the parents'/guardian's income level and their capability to repay. The interest rates also depend on the income as well as the credit profile of the borrower. You could also get a concession if you provide a security or a collateral," says Adhil Shetty, CEO of BankBazaar.com, a financial services company.

Funding for coaching

Coaching classes, which help students prepare for various entrance exams, have become a vital part of the education system. Ranjana Sharma, who scored 95% in her higher secondary, aspires to become a doctor, but her father cannot pay the hefty fee demanded by the coaching institute. He can now approach the banks as they provide loans for coaching taken for professional courses. So, students appearing for entrance exams for civil services, medicine, chartered accountancy, engineering, etc, can opt for this loan.

Indian Teachers in Demand in Singapore Schools

(Source: Economic Times) Indian teachers are most sought after in Singapore schools with increasing number of teachers being recruited to teach not only Indian languages but also other subjects. Over 70 teachers from India have been hired in the past four years and another 10 teachers from the country are set to teach in the city schools later this year as the Education Ministry seeks out international educationists to boost its teaching force, The Straits Times reported today. "It's logical to hire from India because they are culturally much closer to us," Singapore's Academy of Principals dean Belinda Charles was quoted as saying by the daily. Kolkata-based 'Academy for Professional Excellence', a recruitment agency for Singapore's Education Ministry since 2006, had recruited eight teachers in 2007 and the number increased to 30 in 2009 and 25 last year. Most of the teachers were from Kolkata. The paper, citing the Education Ministry, said the numbers of international teachers still remain small, under 2 per cent or less than 620 of the 31,000-strong teaching force in Singapore. The Ministry said it has been looking for teachers overseas for 20 years to "inject diversity and perspective" into the education system here. Singapore is facing shortage of teachers, particularly of economics as local teachers specialising in the subject left for lucrative jobs in the commercial sector during the economic boom four years ago.

Computer for students @ $35. Is it really possible?

"India unveils $35 computer for students," says CNN.com. "India unveils prototype for $35 touch-screen computer," reports BBC News. "India to provide $35 computing device to students," says BusinessWeek.

Wow! That's great! Too bad it will never exist. That this announcement is reported straight and without even a hint of skepticism is incomprehensible to me.

India's human resource ministry announced this week a "breakthrough" solar-powered tablet computer that would cost only US$35 in "early 2011." Reports say the tablet was developed at various Indian universities. "We have made the breakthrough and are now ready to capture the market," said Mamta Varma, a spokeswoman for the human-resource-development ministry.

In the first phase of the rollout, a million tablets would be provided to university students. In later phases, the program would be expanded to primary and secondary students. Millions of students would be using these cheap tablets within a year.

Officials even hinted that in the future the price could drop to $10 per tablet.

The project appears to target a similar demographic and purpose as the "One Laptop per Child program, which is still struggling to bring the cost of its non-solar, non-touch screen computer down to its goal of $100.

What's really going on?

Because the mainstream media is too gullible, shameless and lazy to report this story with even the slightest hint of skepticism, let me spell out what is almost certainly going on here.

Indian politicians have discovered that announcing technological "breakthroughs" that leverage Indian engineering prowess to deliver computers to everybody helps get press and win votes. It's a cheap gimmick that works because of the gullibility of the media.

While the press pays attention to the Big Announcement, hardly any media outlets notices later when nothing ever comes of it. Why? Because a headline with "$35 tablet" in it brings traffic, eyeballs and readers, whereas a headline with "media duped again" brings only shame. So they go for the glory, but omit the shame.

For example: In February of last year, the Indian government announced a $10 to $20 laptop called the "Shaksat. Like the $35 tablet, the Shaksat had 2GB of RAM, but details on other components were impossible to come by.

It was to be rolled out in 6 months, and was to be used by millions of students across India, transforming the Indian educational system and economy. So where is the Shaksat?

In 1999, a group of Indian scientists and engineers developed a low-cost computer for the poor called the "Simputer. It was a Linux-basedpen-and-touch tablet with text-to-speech capability. The Simputer was announced with great fanfare by the Indian government. The goal was to sell 50,000, but only 4,000 were ever sold.

Are you detecting a formula here? Pandering politicians hold up a prototype and proclaim a "breakthrough." A new computer, developed by students and professors at India's prestigious engineering universities, has "cracked the code" for low-cost computing for the masses.

Very soon these devices will be pushed out to Indian students, transforming the educational levels of the country and providing the tools for Indian technological leadership in the future.

Everybody wants to believe this story. But that doesn't make it true.

Why the $35 Indian tablet will never exist?

India itself doesn't build touch screens. They would have to be imported from China or Taiwan. The current price for this component alone exceeds $35. Like touch-screens, most solar panels are also built in China. But even the cheapest ones powerful enough to charge a tablet battery are more expensive to manufacture than $35.

Plus you need to pay for the 2GB of RAM, the case, and the rest of the computer electronics. Even if you factor in Moore's Law, and assume the absolute cheapest rock-bottom junk components, a solar touch-tablet with 2GB of RAM cannot be built anytime soon for less than $100.

More to the point, no country in the world can build a cheaper computer than China can. The entire tech sector in China is optimized for ultra low-cost manufacturing. All the engineering brilliance in India can't change that.

Even if Moore's Law unexpectedly accelerated, and India was miraculously able to build a $35 tablet next year, there would be 100 Chinese companies selling tablets for $20 and the Indian initiative would be pointless anyway.

This is largely what happened with the Simputer. By the time the consortium managed to get the device through the manufacturing process, the open market was producing devices that were far cheaper and better.

So in addition to this latest engineering "breakthrough" announced by the Indian government, they would also have to make a breakthrough in the ability of governments to produce cheaper computers than the open market, an event that has never before occurred -- and probably never will.

The awful truth?

The $35 tablet announcement was nothing more than shameless political opportunism. The world's media were suckered (again) -- hook, line and sinker.

The whole affair is a shameful, disgusting spectacle that represents everything that's wrong with politics, the media, and public gullibility in the new idiocracy.

Cheap computers are nice. But what we really need is a little common sense.