Innovation, not eminence, is key

Innovation, not eminence, is key

News:

1. Kapil Vishwanathan, has talked about reforms required in Higher Education in India.

Important Facts:

2. Man and Machine together has caused Rapid modernization and created a threat to environment.
3. As per the Author, higher education across the globe has failed to address the changing demands of unpredictable world and environmental damage caused by it.
4. Demerits of India’s higher Education:

• In India, the better institutions of higher education tends to prepare graduates for their first job or vocation but not for life.
• Though India is moving into towards liberal arts education, it does not seem to be moving hand in hand with technology (A liberal arts education refers to college studies that provide general knowledge and develop intellectual ability)

5. What India should do:

• Develop new vision for education to combine technology, humanities and ethics.
• Higher education should prepare students for life, not just a career.
• Motivate students to learn to deal with the inevitable ethical challenges in daily life.
• Provide an opportunity to students to allow them to feel the sense of purpose they are studying.
• Establish learnings of the past and present with preparedness for the future.

6. How the Education System can ensure the above objectives?

• Introduce core skills module to help students develop a set of life skills, including ethical reasoning, data science, design thinking and effective communication.
• Introduce concentration module to help students to dive deep into a chosen discipline, not merely for the sake of accumulating knowledge but to develop a deep sense of inquiry and to learn to solve problems.
• Provide an arrangement to allow the connect between Teaching and Research and Development.

7. Suggestions for India

• India needs hundreds of institutes of eminence, not just six
• India needs to think beyond the current mandate of breaking into the top 500 global rankings within 10 years.
• Require regulatory flexibility to encourage Institute of Eminence to experiment.