October 13, 2011
School of Business, Coimbatore
 

Even as the Indian government steps up its efforts to provide quality education to every child in India through e-learning or distance learning, similar efforts are ongoing worldwide to reach out to under privileged children in several poor countries.
 

At the forefront of these efforts is the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organization that encourages the development and sharing of knowledge, resources and technologies for open learning and distance education.
 

Now Dr. Rajiv Prasad, Associate Professor, Amrita School of Business at Coimbatore, will contribute to this effort as a newly appointed consultant to the COL.
 

“I have been identified as an area expert in Business Ethics,” shared Dr. Rajiv. “I have been asked to develop a course outline for this subject.”
 

With an MBA from IRMA, Anand and an FPM from Indian Institute of Management, Kolkatta, Dr. Rajiv has over fourteen years of experience in teaching, research and consulting. Since joining Amrita in May 2007, he has taught courses in Organizational Behaviour and Leadership in addition to Business Ethics.
 

At Management Development Programs organized on campus for employees of different organizations, he has been called upon to teach topics related to motivation and organizational culture.
 

Now Dr. Rajiv is preparing the course outline for the COL initiative and also supplementing it with relevant articles, case studies and scholarly papers. The first draft is due to the COL committee by the end of this month.
 

He is taking care to see that his prepared material will appeal to a multicultural audience. He is especially including examples that elaborate on how corporate greed has caused damage to the environment in certain places around the world and how extreme poverty has driven people in poorer countries to desperation.
 

“It’s a good opportunity for me,” he shared. “It’s mutually beneficial. I feel this will give me a chance to interact with an international community.”
 

Will he actually teach the course or only compile the course content?
 

“That remains to be seen. In this initiative, the course content is being designed. Reading is to be made available online for students to access, even audio-visual course content. A faculty member identified by the COL committee will coordinate the course.”
 

Students in India are not currently part of this program. But India supports it, as do other Commonwealth countries, through voluntary funding.
 

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, COL is dedicated to promoting distance education and open learning. Now Amrita’s Dr. Rajiv will help the organization in its pioneering efforts.