Shaping the future

REIMAGINING HIGHER EDUCATION

Dr. Mridul Hazarika

(The writer is former Vice Chancellor, Gauhati University and currently advisor, SITA. He Can be reached at hazarika50@gmail.com)

The education system in ancient India evolved over a long period starting from the days of Rig Veda. Uniqueness of the ancient Indian education was its focus on the holistic development of individuals for a healthy mind and body. Thus, education in India has a heritage of being pragmatic and complementary to life. The spirit and value of ancient education to impart holistic development continued for a long time and this was to a great extent maintained in the pre-colonial period. Changes from the beginning of the colonial period to contemporary learning were many.

The advent of COVID-19 pandemic caught us unaware leading to disruption in the teaching-learning process. An unusual situation arising out of this pandemic has put the learners in a state of confusion for their future. The pandemic has significantly disrupted the higher education sector as well, which is a critical determinant of a country's economic future. The bigger concern, however, on everybody's mind is the effect of the disease on the day-to-day academic work/studies and the psychological Impact on the teachers and the students as well.

We are fortunate to see the digital revolution having impact on the economy, institution, and societal structure. This digital revolution made people to re-imagine their life to live and learn. This change is significant in shaping the human mind to adapt to rapid changes.

Future of teaching-learning depends to a great extent on how we ensure the presence of quality assurance mechanism during progressive shift to digital mode. The challenge becomes even greater for the reason that students at present expect the learning process to fit their interests and lifestyle. The established system of education would anyway lose relevance to a great extent even if the pandemic did not emerge. New Education Policy (NEP) tried to bring relevance. The present challenge only came as an opportunity to rejuvenate the traditional system. This opportunity should be utilized to work out a new structure which will reshape the traditional structure of teaching-learning with greater emphasis on network and relationship mode without diluting the quality with a learner-centric approach.

Another challenge is how we make the new structure more responsive. It is the outcome which will decide the level of success of a new structure which is not only responsive but would also ensure conforming to the lifestyle and interest of students and would provide scope for a deeper understanding of the subject. However, unlike the rich and advanced countries, our country is enmeshed with the issue of vast inequality in accessibility to various resources and infrastructure, therefore, we as a country would have to draw upon much more innovative strategies. Understanding of social & emotional health along with new tools and practices can create a better learning environment. NEP has tried to intervene on many of these issues. Assam needs separately address many of these issues for obvious reasons.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning application will penetrate much faster than expected with greater role of digital technology in teaching and learning. Such a technological emergence is likely to replace many of the full-time jobs, a situation which leaves very little scope but to evolve and innovate in ways that one does not become redundant, compelling to re-imagine our approach to education to make it career ready.

The complacency of the teaching community has led to static outdated content which covers a substantial portion of syllabi. Is it not the responsibility of the teaching community to respond to the changes much faster? Response to the scientific and social changes should be visible in the content at the right time.

Further, it is observed that the present approach to education is oriented towards reproduction of a series of facts and information, making it examination centric which hardly provides scope for judging the potential of students, their imagination, and creativity. Innovation in the examination system is necessary which will drive learners to construct knowledge rather than reproduce information. The process of teaching-learning only makes imitators and followers. We need a system that will create innovators and leaders. Constructivism theory has been gaining acceptance slowly. Teachers need to be adequately trained for this theory to understand and adopt. Teachers need to be facilitators for students to construct knowledge.

Previous experiences can help us to perceive a new world. Industrial revolution changed the way we live forever, and then came the technological revolution, and now at this point we are at the edge of artificial intelligence revolution. Everything depends on how we drive the teaching-learning process. We live in a technology-society interface, hence, our learning, our outreach, our programs, our policies, our plans need to constantly adapt to the changing dynamics of the interface, more so for the upcoming generation.

Multi skilling can only fill the void created in the employment market for various reasons. Digital mode, no doubt can handle a greater volume of content but at the cost of attention and focus.

We need to create leaders for the future. Leadership is a process of social influence which maximizes efforts of others towards the achievement of a greater good. To influence, we need a deeper understanding and longer focus on issues of greater interest which digital environment does not facilitate.

We have to accept that we have little option to be away from digital intervention. Hence the entire approach for a new teaching-learning structure (platform) based on innovation is needed to integrate traditional response mode with digital mode. We need to realize that response in face-to-face teaching-learning process plays an important role in deeper understanding of a subject. Proper blending of face-to-face TL with digital counterpart will be very effective for achieving the intended outcome.

Innovation is an exhaustive process. There should be permanent innovation groups at institutional and state levels to continuously upgrade systems, including an effort to perfect the integration process.

The evaluation process should be such that a student has to think more to answer than reproducing from the text. The evaluation process should ensure the assessment for all cognitive levels of learning. Students should have the liberty to present new ideas contradicting existing theory. There should be answer options carrying different scores. This process should start at the postgraduate level where the number of students is not large.

Irrelevant theories should be eliminated from the syllabus.

Senior-level teaching positions like Professors should be tenure-based to remove complacency.

It is important to identify skill sets suitable for each student to develop multi-skill ability.

A deeper understanding of the subject should be encouraged by unique models involving practical exposure and curiosity-driven programmes linked to nature and real life.