Indian educational system

One of the important things, in the present time, which need greater attention, is the education sector. Because of infrastructure shortages, constrained public resources, rising pressure from citizens and civil society have combined to push government and policy makers to explore new ways of financing and managing the education sector, in which private sector investment can be attracted through mutually beneficial arrangement. The present paper outlines the conceptual framework of Public Private Partnership, need for it and various initiatives in education, constraints in implementing and suggestion for improving.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs have recently received a great deal of attention from the media, entrepreneurial vendors, education professionals and technologically literate sections of the public. MOOCs will provide free to access cutting edge courses to students of higher education in university system. Across the world, premier universities have put their courses online by setting up open learning platforms, such as edX. Commercial start-ups such as Coursera and Udacity have also been launched in collaboration with prestigious universities, offering online courses for free or charging a small fee for certification. The rapid expansion of MOOCs has sparked commercial interest from venture capitalists and major corporations who want to enter the Higher Education (HE) market using a MOOC approach. Students’ motivation to participate in MOOCs is a significant area of interest. Factors that influence students’ motivation to learn include future economic benefit, development of personal and professional identity, challenge and achievement, enjoyment and fun. What motivates the MOOC learner? Surveys conducted by researchers at Duke University show that student motivations typically fell into one of four categories viz. a) To support lifelong learning or gain an understanding of the subject matter, with no particular expectations for  completion or achievement b) For fun, entertainment, social experience and intellectual stimulation c)  Convenience, often in conjunction with barriers to traditional education options d) To experience or explore online education (Belanger  and Thornton, 2013). In order to investigate the usage and effectiveness of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) of edX, Coursera, Udacity and Udemy in university system in India, a qualitative study was employed by the authors and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with students of higher education in Indian universities and teaching professionals in university setups. The authors interviewed the participants based on a list of questions expanded from the three primary research questions based on the awareness, content, usage and learning outcomes. The questions were open-ended, which allowed the participants to freely express their experiences, thoughts, and feelings about the use of MOOCs. This study demonstrates the awareness, usage and effectiveness of MOOCs among students and teaching professionals of Indian University system.

Sustainable development has become an important concept for a viable future of the world. India's ever increasing population and the rapidly changing urban lifestyle, are posing critical environmental and social problems. Sustainable development at its core tries to balance different and frequently competing needs against an awareness of the environmental, social and economic limitations that a society faces. Sustainable development policies highlight the role of higher education in attaining its goals. All the stakeholders of higher education could play a vital function for promoting environment and social sustainability and help meet the needs of its existing members and also support the ability of future generations to keep the society healthy. The 'Sustainable Development Goals' called SDGs, clearly associate development to sustainability and also recognises the contribution of higher education in meeting global sustainable development challenges and promoting sustainability. The present paper examines the concept of sustainability and discusses the role of higher education system in promoting environmental and social sustainability for a wholesome development of the country.

Organisations in the educational sector are being influenced by several aspects such as political environment, deteriorating financial aid from the government, rising aspirations of first generation learners in higher education and so on. Along with this, it is also noteworthy to mention that the society is investing huge amount of human, financial and material resources in establishing and running institutions of higher learning. This makes it imperative to study the effectiveness of educational institutions which are non-profit organisations. The study therefore attempts to ascertain the factors influencing organisational effectiveness in the educational sector. The researcher has identified four variables that are expected to influence organisational effectiveness measured in terms of perceived gains from post-graduate education. The factors identified include organisational health, psychological wellbeing of students, satisfaction with quality of campus life and student engagement. The study has adopted the descriptive method of the correlational type. The sample comprised of 273 post graduate students of University of Mumbai selected randomly through stratified random sampling techniques. When analysed using multiple regression techniques, it was found that (9.28%, 8.32%, 18.34% and 23.42% of the variance in perceived gains from post-graduate education is contributed by organisational health, psychological well-being of students, satisfaction with quality of campus life and student engagement respectively. In all, 77.05% of the variance in perceived gains from post-graduate education is explained by the variables included in the study. Almost one fifth of the variance in the perceived gains from post-graduate education is contributed by organisational health and student engagement. The findings of the study suggest that any effort to enhance organisational effectiveness should focus on improving organisational health and student engagement.

In the present day world, it has been observed that there is an increase in lack of motivation among the students towards their academics especially when they reach high school because at this stage their attention is diverted and divided among many things like peer group, heterogeneous relations, fashion and incessant entertainment and this hampers their academic performance. So, the present paper is an attempt to find out the relationship between Academic Motivation and Academic Achievement of Class IX students of Assam, India. Tool used for the study is Academic Achievement Motivation Test by T.R. Sharma and for the academic achievement the final year examination results were taken. The findings of the study revealed a significant positive relationship between academic motivation and academic achievement. There is a significant difference in Academic Motivation between high and low achievers. But there is a significant sex difference within low achievers with respect to academic motivation.