Road to reforms
18 August 2009, 05:12am IST With India poised to become a knowledge economy, the focus is on building a strong educational system that helps the country win a global edge. As part of the continuing efforts to highlight the road ahead, Education Times recently organised a seminar, Road to Reforms: Rethinking the Curriculum, providing a platform for educationists, policy-makers and industry leaders to share their views and chalk out the roadmap for education. Addressing the inaugural session, N K Singh, member of Parliament and chairman, board of governors, Management Development Institute (MDI), set the tone for the event by stating that the vision of education is to create an innovation society. He pointed out that attitude, teaching methodologies, evaluation procedures and so forth have to comprehensively change in order to fulfil this aim. The sessions - Restructuring the Path, Current scenario and the need for a new curriculum framework, and The road ahead - addressed a range of issues, thus, encapsulating an agenda for action. School Education Scenario One of the major concerns of school education in India, today, is that it doesn't integrate with our higher education system. As the speakers pointed out, it is imperative that - along with a holistic curriculum - children are trained to join the dots to get the bigger picture. Ideally, education at the elementary, primary and secondary level should be in sync with what is taught at the higher level. School education should focus on devising teaching and learning methodologies that are engaging and contextual. Unless and until learning is placed in its context, it cannot equip a child with life-skills and problem-solving abilities. According to Ashish Rajpal, co-founder & CEO, iDiscoveri Education, learning is all about community participation and real-life contexts. India, he stressed, is in need of volunteers who can contribute towards a free flowing and flexible classroom learning. However, a range of issues continue to plague the school education system in India. For instance, despite emphasis on access to elementary education - and the apparent school enrolment ratio going up - quality is yet to be a priority. To achieve that goal, most speakers felt, students should not be spoon-fed. Instead, a hands-on-approach and self-learning can generate curiosity and make them lifelong learners. Integration of pedagogical research within the classroom is also another area that needs to be focussed upon. Finally, the National Curriculum Framework, which is comprehensive in approach, is yet to be implemented in a full-fledged manner to achieve the results. Higher Education Scenario Higher education in India needs a reality-check. According to a recent McKinsey report, a mere 15% of our finance graduates and 25% of our engineering graduates are employable. In fact, around 83% of our graduates do not have industry skills. Amitabh Jhingan from Ernst & Young stressed that the higher education system should reinforce soft-skills. Anshul Sonak, head, Intel Education South Asia, agreed to say that, ideally, education should be porous and produce future generations of contemporary problem-solvers. Education should essentially be application-oriented. That will encourage students to branch out and not remain restricted within the limitations of a specific discipline. P P Bhojvaid, dean (academic), TERI University, added that academics should have a lateral context. That can help students think critically and question what they are taught. In fact, Pragya Srivastava, joint commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, pointed out that an interdisciplinary approach was important to facilitate unconventional thinking. While an out-of-the-box approach is commendable, a structured but contemporary curriculum is important. Deepak Pental, vice-chancellor, Delhi University, emphasised the need for timely curriculum review and upgradation. He stressed that the submissions of various committees (in terms of curriculum modification) need to be addressed with more seriousness. Besides, most educationists agreed that an exam-oriented system needed to be substituted by a system of continuous assessment through which individual progress can be monitored. Some other areas of concern that were discussed were shortage of skilled faculty, teacher recruitment and training. Hari Gautam, vice-chancellor, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and former chairman of UGC, pointed out that the Indian education system is in need of objective teacher evaluations. As far as higher learning is concerned, lack of a research environment is an issue of concern. The need for a more competitive funding to boost research initiatives was stressed. Also, the need for a collaborative industry-academia framework was emphasised to make research more relevant. In this context, Pental pointed out that universities abroad enjoy federal grants in terms of pursuing their research. "If we want to leverage the acumen of these universities to further our research initiatives we have to make funds available for research. Also, adequate mechanisms have to be in place to safeguard Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)," he added. Way ahead Rise of the information society and the knowledge economy at a global level has reinforced education as a key economic and business driver. The demographic differentials reveal that in the next 20 to 30 years, India would have a youth-centric population profile. In such a situation, new opportunities are likely to be optimised. As far as the future is concerned, while greater coordination between regulatory bodies and policy-making agencies is required, Kiran Datar, chairperson, Working Group on Undergraduate Education, said that that universities should adopt a student-centric approach and stress on practical innovations. To sum up, what evolved from the seminar was that India needs to promote an education system that stresses on innovation, incorporates a digital environment and devises university-level education in such a manner that it can contribute to the economy.
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