EducationWorld January 10

With too few medical cosmetologists countrywide even as the demand for beauty and wellness services has created a billion dollar industry, theres a rising premium on their servicesLooking good, maintaining physical fitness and positive image attitude at all ages, is becoming a growing trend among people with high-powered jobs and upscale lifestyles. Thats why medical cosmetology has become an attractive and rewarding career for qualified medical practitioners. Its one more specialisation option for MBBS graduates. Medical cosmetology is an approved medical science and cosmetologists/ dermatologists can typically promote their own clinics or work in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and medispas as cosmetic surgeons, dermatologists and surgical aides. Physicians first, they treat diseases and prescribe cosmetic procedures after assessing the physical and mental health of patients. They do surgical procedures such as liposuction, lifting of body parts, correcting deformities and also undertake non-surgical procedures such as skin peeling, administering botox, thread lift etc for the physical and mental well-being of patients. To qualify as a cosmetic dermatologist, a postgraduate degree in dermatology or a diploma in dermatology/medical cosmetology is required. Among the few institutes in India offering certification courses in medical cosmetology are Annamalai University which offers a postgrad diploma in health science (medical cosmetology) through distance education; Kosmoderma Academy of Aesthetic Medicine, Bangalore; ICLS (Institute of Cosmetology and Laser Science), Mumbai, which offers online study programmes in all branches of cosmetology; and latterly the Gorgeous Skin Care Training Academy, Mumbai, (GSTA, estb. 2008) which offers a four-month postgrad certification programme in medical cosmetology to qualified medical practitioners, and a two-month certificate course for school-leavers to be trained as skin therapists. With too few medical cosmetologists countrywide even as the demand for beauty and wellness services has created a billion dollar industry, its hardly surprising that theres a huge-and-rising premium on trained cosmetologists. After qualifying, medical cosmetologists usually begin their careers as assistants in clinics or medispas at handsome salaries of Rs.25,000-50,000 per month. After some years of experience, they can start their own clinics to rake in big bucks. Cosmetologists who arent medically qualified can also enter the ranks of high income earners by working in beauty parlours, medical skin clinics, spas and cosmetics manufacturing companies. A hitherto uncharted field of medicine, medical cosmetology is a lucrative and happening career option. Until recently cosmetology services were in demand mainly in the glamour and entertainment world. Today they are required by college students, working women, corporate executives, house-wives and even older citizens — all of whom quite legitimately want to look and feel good. Future demand for medical cosmetology services is certain to spiral given Indias growing youth popu-lation, says Dr. Purnima Mhatre, the promoter-director of Gorgeous Skin Care Clinics Pvt. Ltd (GSCC) and the Gorgeous Skin Care Academy (estb. 2008). An MBBS graduate of the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Karad (Maharashtra), Mhatre practised as a general physician in several hospitals and worked with a dermatologist, thus developing an interest in this special-isation. In 1995 she acquired a diploma in…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

The Congress-led UPA-2 government in New Delhi must be applauded for passing the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill which could become an Act of Parliament any day now. This legislation was long overdue and will undoubtedly benefit millions of Indias children. However the fate of 30 million children who are disabled or differently abled remains dismal, as they have been left out of the purview of the Bill. This means that children with disability arent included in the 25 percent reservation in class I of private neighbourhood schools, which has been given to weak and disadvantaged children as defined in s.2 (d) of the Bill.Those of us who have devoted our lives to the education of disabled children, and have shown that they can eminently benefit from education, are in a state of shock and disbelief to find that the RTE Bill has not included them in its definition of disadvantaged children. This despite assurances of the prime minister and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Although the media — especially NDTV and the Indian Express — have highlighted this lacuna of the RTE Bill, until the Act is amended, or children with disability are notified as disadvan-taged, their education remains a grey area. In response to our concerns and apprehen-sions, Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal says that disabled children have been included as per the proviso in the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995. According to him, this provision automatically extends the right to education to disabled children as defined by the PWD Act. This is not correct. In fact, it dilutes the right to education of disabled children. Mainstream education can be denied to disabled children because of the use of terminology such as appropriate environment (which could be interpreted as education at home!) in the PWD Act. The stark truth is that the PWD Act does not endow children with disability the fundamental right to free and compulsory education as does the RTE legislation. It does not guarantee the protection of the 93rd Amendment to the Constitution which includes ‘education for all to children with disability which took us three decades to achieve when the Amendment was tabled in Parliament! Besides the PWD Act has no clear and specific guidelines for implementation with effective dates, deadlines, alternate arrangements, temporary reliefs etc. To this day there are many barriers to inclusive education for disabled children in India. Lack of infrastructural support and funding has ensured that during the past 60 years since independence, a mere 2 percent of children with disabilities have been included in mainstream education — a shocking illustration of institutionalised discrimination. And now following exclusion from the RTE Act, children with disabilities have fallen into the cracks between the PWD Act and the RTE Act once again. Therefore there is an urgent necessity to amend the RTE Bill so that all children (disabled and non-disabled) have a fundamental right to education under s.3 of the RTE Bill without any cross-referencing to the PWD Act…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

On freezing days in Paris last winter, the streets of the citys Latin Quarter were filled with students and academics stirred into protest. The casual bystander would have been bemused to find right-wing law professors marching hand-in-hand with left-wing social sciences lecturers. The crowds rallying cry might have been equally puzzling. Long live the Princess of Cleves, the marchers shouted.This was the picture with which Monique Canto-Sperber, director of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, began a lecture on the reform of French universities at University College London in November. What united the protesters in anger were two laws — one on university autonomy and one on new qualifications for high school teachers and academics — passed by the centre-right government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Under the autonomy and responsibility law passed in July 2007, universities were given greater freedom from state control. Academics will now be employees of their university rather than the state, and institutions will make decisions on key issues such as the balance between teaching and research. According to Prof. Canto-Sperber most academics view the law as an egregious threat to the independence of faculty members. Professors were previously under the authority of a National Council for Universities, with expert boards in each subject area. They consider themselves employees of the national education system and not of the universities they belong to, she adds. The other reform stirring up anger is masterisation, a reform introduced as part of the Bologna Process, aimed at harmonising Europes higher education systems. Masters degrees and doctorates are now to be accepted as qualifications for high school and university teachers, a move seen as undermining the old agregation exam. The agregation reflected a teachers depth and body of knowledge of a specific academic field and promised entry to the highest echelons of the intellectual world, says Prof. Canto-Sperber. The acceptance of masters is a threat to the continuity between high school and university teaching and to the quality and high status of teachers training, she adds. The two reforms have injured the sense of identity of students and their professors. The protesters vocal support for the Princess of Cleves was a revolutionary rallying cry against an attack on the French education system by Sarkozy, who recalled being forced to read the useless 17th-century novel La Princesse de Cleves during his schooling. Prof. Canto-Sperber fears that students and professors wont give up until the reform project is completely withdrawn. I have real hope that it will work, but the task will be very difficult. There is such a tradition in France of playing the state against university power, she says. It will be a very fractious, difficult way. But it is the only way to go. I really do hope presidents of universities will have the nerve to go through difficult times. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

The world is facing a crisis of the academic profession thanks to a growing reliance on part-time, badly paid and poorly qualified scholars. This viewpoint was recently expressed by Dr. Philip Altbach, professor of higher education at Boston College, USA while addressing the Third International Conference on World-Class Universities in Shanghai. Altbach warned that the crisis is one of the most pressing issues facing the academy today. It threatens teaching and research quality in established universities and is holding back efforts to build new world-class institutions.Speaking to Times Higher Education after his lecture titled ‘The past, present and future of world-class universities, Prof. Altbach said: A well-qualified academic profession is central to the success of a research university. Without a committed professoriate, a great university — or for that matter even an average one — is impossible. Describing the crisis in higher education, he said that the average qualifications of academics worldwide has declined. Perhaps up to half of the worlds college and university teachers now have only a bachelors degree, although good statistics are not available on this. A growing percentage are part-timers, poorly paid with little commitment to their university. Salaries are a particular issue for world-leading, research-led institutions, he says. Research universities have problems hiring and retaining the best and the brightest, in part because salaries in academia are nowhere comparable to what can be earned in the private sector industry — and the gap is growing, he said. Meanwhile workloads are becoming more burdensome as a result of increased bureaucracy and accountability, growing student numbers even in research universities, and increasing pressure on academics to publish more to obtain research grants. Even in research universities, there is a growing number of part-time and ‘contract professors who cannot hope for a stable career. For countries seeking to build up their research universities, attracting high-quality staff is central — and often forgotten — in the rush to world-class status. For established universities, neglecting their professors will inevitably result in a deterioration of quality in teaching and research, he warns. Moral policing diktat row Despite fierce opposition, student guards wearing red armbands are patrolling a Chinese university to enforce a ban on public kissing. Nanjing Forestry University introduced the ban on campus canoodling two months ago, says the state news agency Xinhua, and is deploying about 100 student-petting police despite a volley of online protests. My boyfriend and I were interrupted by a red armband as we were sitting together on campus. The guy came over and warned us to behave. I really cant bear this, says a student using the name ‘Dian Dian on a social networking website. The university authorities have declined to comment but show no sign of lifting the ban, adds Xinhua. (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda

Tiny, landlocked Rwanda (pop.9.7 million) is sometimes touted as Africas high-tech economy. It is still a bit early for that, however. Neighbouring Uganda produces far more computer science graduates. Countries such as Nigeria and Kenya are even further ahead. South Africa is out of sight. But technology is the core of Rwandas plan to transform its economy by 2020. The country seems ready to back its ambition with money and policies.By 2012, for instance, Rwanda wants every child in the country between the ages of nine and 12 — 1.3 million children in all — to have a laptop, each with an internet or intranet connection to download free educational software and electronic books. We estimate the start-up cost will be $313 million (Rs.1,461 crore), says Richard Niyonkuru of Rwandas education ministry. If all goes well, the programme will embrace children between six and eight by 2015. The supplier will be One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), an American charity linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has been trying for years to push cheap and robust laptops into primary schools in poor countries. Yet critics say the present version of the OLPC machine is too expensive, too clunky and too slow. The charity has failed to sell as many laptops as it had hoped. Its deals with some governments have stalled. For its part, OLPC says it has ironed out its laptops flaws and that Rwanda will meet its 2012 target. The charitys head, Nicholas Negroponte, reckons the impact of the computer, which was originally to be subsidised and sold for $100, is not just about numbers sold. OLPC, he says, can take some credit for promoting cheaper laptops called netbooks and cheaper screens. Rwanda has ordered an initial 100,000 laptops at a price of $181 (Rs.8,453) each. By 2012 the Rwandans want to be supplied with the more advanced laptops that OLPC is developing. These will be made from a single piece of plastic. They will be waterproof, harder to break, have colour screens, yet could cost as little as $75 (Rs.3,503) each. With prices that low, say Rwandans, children might be able to keep one laptop through their entire school career. Schoolwork, textbooks and a library of other books and applications would be stored in them, with screens designed to be readable in bright sunshine and to use minimal power in huts without electricity at night. Rwandas austere president, Paul Kagame, believes the initial outlay will be worth it. How else, he says, to produce the 50,000 computer programmers the country wants by 2020? OLPC says its research in Rwanda and elsewhere suggests that children work harder and think more creatively with a laptop. They will escape the drudgery of rote learning, the curse of many African primary schools, though some educationalists think laptops stunt interaction between children in class. If the scheme is to be profitable, software will eventually have to be written to link computers to omnipresent mobile phones. Money must also be found to…

Already a subscriber

Click here to log in and continue reading by entering your registered email address or subscribe now

Join with us in our mission to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda