 "Ashoka University joins hands with India Inc for funds")
Chakshu, a 12th standard student from Punjab Public School, Nabha, is among the first batch of students of 350 undertaking the under-graduate course at Ashoka University, an independent non-profit private university established by the Haryana Private Universities Act, providing liberal education.
For Chakshu, getting access to Ashoka University, an under-graduate course costs Rs 20 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per year), would not have been accessible. She is among a handful of students that have managed to get a full-scholarship for the course and get admission in a university that provides liberal education.
Chakshu is among several of the students that Ashoka University wants to enrol, who would otherwise do not get admission or do not get access to education from institutes like IITs and other tier-1 under graduate institutes. "What made us want to enrol her and also give her access to the scholarship programme was her leadership skill," said Vineet Gupta, founder and trustee, Ashoka University (AU).
Chakshu comes from a lower-income family who has been able to complete her education by herself on scholarship. She has also started an NGO at this age in her village that teaches children who have no access to education. This she has done by getting like-minded tutors and also taking permission from the employer to teach these children at the work-place so that their livelihood does not get impacted. "She is an apt example of a social leader," said Prof Jonathan Gil Harris, Professor of English, Ashoka University; Ph.D. University of Sussex, who interviewed her.
Another applicant is Gautam Gupta who has developed and sold SexyBookmarks to Shareholic, co-founder of DatumDroid app and an Entrepreneur-in-residence at GSF India, who may have missed the bus to IIT as he fell short by a few numbers. "The idea is to give access to Ivy league education to students who otherwise cannot get into tier-1 education institutes because they lacked a few more marks," said Gupta.
Ashoka University will be the first university in India providing liberal arts education, where students can opts for combinations like English Literature and computer science or history, economics, philosophy, mathematics, sociology among others.
The total cost of the project is estimated at Rs 500 crore, and the university will be developed in three phases. So far the founders have raised Rs 140 crore which has been used to build the infrastructure. The second phase will be kicked off in August 2016 and the third phase will commence sometime in 2019.
Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries' Dilip Shanghvi will also be a contributor to the university. Further, for the rest of the fund raising process, Ashish Dhawan of venture capital fund ChrysCapital Investment Advisors, has been enagaged by the university to help them in the fund-raising effort.
The admission process also gives due weightage to the students co-curriculum activities. The admission process after does take academic scores across ninth standard to 12th, but SAT scores are optional. Admission process also evaluates students based on activities and co-curriculum activities, reference from teachers and essays, which is followed by an interview. "We are looking for academic rigour. But not from only a marks stand point. Your marks could be average but you may have great writing skills or have had a tremendous impact in your locality," said Gupta.
The idea of Ashoka started as early as 2007 among seven like-minded people--Sanjiv Bikhchandani of naukri.com, Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital; Sid Yog, managing partner, Xander Group; Puneet Dalmia, MD & CEO, Dalmia Bharat Cement; Pramath Raj Sinha, founding dean, Indian School of Business; and Jaithirth Rao, ex-MphasiS head and chairman of Value and Budget Corporation--who wanted to address some of the lacuna in today's education system.
"Irrespective of what you study we think students need to have good communication skills, have problem solving capability, are socially responsible and are ethical leadership. What has come as a surprise is the feedback we have received. So far the feedback that we have received has been overwhelming," he added. The pre-application round that started recently has received 400 applications. The online application filling process has already touched 1,400 and this process will go upto June.
To be able to get access to deserving students, AU faculty has reached out to 350 schools in India over the span of last 16 months.
Gupta agrees that the UG course for four-years provided by AU is expensive but of the 350 students, the university will provide some form of scholarship to about 190 students. Gupta also adds that they will also enter into tie-ups with banks for loan. "If you look at the number of students going abroad is huge. An average US education would cost about Rs 30 lakh. So I do not think finance should be a constrain for admission. For those who do not have access we have scholarships," he added.
"The Rs 140 crore corpus is only for building the infrastructure. Scholarship corpus will be separate. We have 15-16 donors for scholarship. For the first year we expect to give scholarships amounting to Rs 5-6 crore," said Gupta.
Founders of AU also acknowledge that one of the challenges is to build credibility for the university, especially when students and parents in India are obsessed with tier-1 institutes. To start with AU has entered into partnership with University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Carleton College and Sciences Po.
At present AU has also got 21 full time faculty of which five are non-Indians, and plans to take this to 40 by the end of the year and ramp it to 150 in the next seven to eight years. The university has already roped in people such as Kaushik Basu, senior VP & chief economist, World Bank; Professor, Cornell University Ph.D. London School of Economics; Ramchandra Guha, historian and author; A K Shiva Kumar member, National Advisory Council; Advisor, UNICEF; Visiting Professor, Harvard & ISB Ph.D. Harvard University among others as part of the university's academic council.
As for placements, AU created the Young India Fellowship as a prototype. The fellowship in its third year has 100 fellows. These fellows have been hired by Microsoft, McKinsey, Star TV and others. Gupta believes that India needs many more Ashoka's, "We would want to create more Ashoka's but as of now we are focusing on creating a world-class institute here," said Gupta.
For Chakshu, getting access to Ashoka University, an under-graduate course costs Rs 20 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per year), would not have been accessible. She is among a handful of students that have managed to get a full-scholarship for the course and get admission in a university that provides liberal education.
Chakshu is among several of the students that Ashoka University wants to enrol, who would otherwise do not get admission or do not get access to education from institutes like IITs and other tier-1 under graduate institutes. "What made us want to enrol her and also give her access to the scholarship programme was her leadership skill," said Vineet Gupta, founder and trustee, Ashoka University (AU).
Chakshu comes from a lower-income family who has been able to complete her education by herself on scholarship. She has also started an NGO at this age in her village that teaches children who have no access to education. This she has done by getting like-minded tutors and also taking permission from the employer to teach these children at the work-place so that their livelihood does not get impacted. "She is an apt example of a social leader," said Prof Jonathan Gil Harris, Professor of English, Ashoka University; Ph.D. University of Sussex, who interviewed her.
Another applicant is Gautam Gupta who has developed and sold SexyBookmarks to Shareholic, co-founder of DatumDroid app and an Entrepreneur-in-residence at GSF India, who may have missed the bus to IIT as he fell short by a few numbers. "The idea is to give access to Ivy league education to students who otherwise cannot get into tier-1 education institutes because they lacked a few more marks," said Gupta.
Ashoka University will be the first university in India providing liberal arts education, where students can opts for combinations like English Literature and computer science or history, economics, philosophy, mathematics, sociology among others.
The total cost of the project is estimated at Rs 500 crore, and the university will be developed in three phases. So far the founders have raised Rs 140 crore which has been used to build the infrastructure. The second phase will be kicked off in August 2016 and the third phase will commence sometime in 2019.
Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries' Dilip Shanghvi will also be a contributor to the university. Further, for the rest of the fund raising process, Ashish Dhawan of venture capital fund ChrysCapital Investment Advisors, has been enagaged by the university to help them in the fund-raising effort.
The admission process also gives due weightage to the students co-curriculum activities. The admission process after does take academic scores across ninth standard to 12th, but SAT scores are optional. Admission process also evaluates students based on activities and co-curriculum activities, reference from teachers and essays, which is followed by an interview. "We are looking for academic rigour. But not from only a marks stand point. Your marks could be average but you may have great writing skills or have had a tremendous impact in your locality," said Gupta.
The idea of Ashoka started as early as 2007 among seven like-minded people--Sanjiv Bikhchandani of naukri.com, Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital; Sid Yog, managing partner, Xander Group; Puneet Dalmia, MD & CEO, Dalmia Bharat Cement; Pramath Raj Sinha, founding dean, Indian School of Business; and Jaithirth Rao, ex-MphasiS head and chairman of Value and Budget Corporation--who wanted to address some of the lacuna in today's education system.
"Irrespective of what you study we think students need to have good communication skills, have problem solving capability, are socially responsible and are ethical leadership. What has come as a surprise is the feedback we have received. So far the feedback that we have received has been overwhelming," he added. The pre-application round that started recently has received 400 applications. The online application filling process has already touched 1,400 and this process will go upto June.
To be able to get access to deserving students, AU faculty has reached out to 350 schools in India over the span of last 16 months.
Gupta agrees that the UG course for four-years provided by AU is expensive but of the 350 students, the university will provide some form of scholarship to about 190 students. Gupta also adds that they will also enter into tie-ups with banks for loan. "If you look at the number of students going abroad is huge. An average US education would cost about Rs 30 lakh. So I do not think finance should be a constrain for admission. For those who do not have access we have scholarships," he added.
"The Rs 140 crore corpus is only for building the infrastructure. Scholarship corpus will be separate. We have 15-16 donors for scholarship. For the first year we expect to give scholarships amounting to Rs 5-6 crore," said Gupta.
Founders of AU also acknowledge that one of the challenges is to build credibility for the university, especially when students and parents in India are obsessed with tier-1 institutes. To start with AU has entered into partnership with University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Carleton College and Sciences Po.
At present AU has also got 21 full time faculty of which five are non-Indians, and plans to take this to 40 by the end of the year and ramp it to 150 in the next seven to eight years. The university has already roped in people such as Kaushik Basu, senior VP & chief economist, World Bank; Professor, Cornell University Ph.D. London School of Economics; Ramchandra Guha, historian and author; A K Shiva Kumar member, National Advisory Council; Advisor, UNICEF; Visiting Professor, Harvard & ISB Ph.D. Harvard University among others as part of the university's academic council.
As for placements, AU created the Young India Fellowship as a prototype. The fellowship in its third year has 100 fellows. These fellows have been hired by Microsoft, McKinsey, Star TV and others. Gupta believes that India needs many more Ashoka's, "We would want to create more Ashoka's but as of now we are focusing on creating a world-class institute here," said Gupta.
- Spread over 25 acres, first phase will see development of 7 acres
- First batch of 350 students to start from August 2014
- Total student capacity of university after completion 4,000
- Completion in 8-years
- UG course fee Rs 20 lakh; Rs 5 lakh per year