B.S.Satyanarayana, vice chancellor of GD Goenka University shares his views on opportunities and challenges of the education system in India with FE Education Online.
What is the best thing about today’s education system?
The world is in the middle of the era of knowledge economy, with ever reducing knowledge life cycles. The global education market is about to reach $10 Trillion by 2030. Of this close to 39% shall be an opportunity for Higher Education (HE) in terms of first time learners in HE, Corporate Education and its associated L&D needs and the need of Lifelong Learners. The fastest growing segment is expected to be HE and lifelong learning segment. Considering that the education sector is the least capitalised for a near $ 8 trillion industry, Indian Education system was the third largest receiver of venture funds in the last decade, from 2010 to 2020 of over $10 Billion. Depending on who is predicting, the Indian education market is expected to be valued about $300 to $ 400 billion by 2030. This is subject to how well we leverage all the opportunities and the human resources, as close to 600 million young and working age groups will be looking for knowledge & skill enabling support.
All this reflects in the activities in the Indian education system when we look at the seriousness in the efforts to implement the National Education Policy NEP 2020. So for the first time in the last 75 years the Indian education system is being facilitated or has come under the radar of all the major stakeholders or enablers of education simultaneously, be it the government, corporates, international and national academic institutions and the learners. All see a necessity to be more seriously leveraging the win-win synergy in working together. Above all leveraging NEP2020 mandates, move away from the era of rote learning or to know education, to the true learning era of “To Know – To Do -To Understand and To Apply with a focus on Learning to Learn for Lifelong Learning.” Especially the emphasis on multidisciplinary experiential learning and project based learning, possibly linked with Industry or society at large.
This, if planned and implemented well with a system’s overview, can help faculty to equally leverage the teaching learning process for knowledge creation in the emerging domains. Thus every class could also lead to not just dissemination of information, but go beyond the basic delivery of content to actual intellectual pursuits with the outcomes of the experiential learning leading to publications, books, products, process to intellectual property including patents. If we look at the way India has emerged as a major Global Value Chain (GVC) partner, if education can leverage and enable international students, not only the market value projections go higher, but India will truly once again be the Vishwaguru at a faster pace, as it was till 300 years back.
What is the one thing you would like to change in the system?
We would ideally want the institutions to be given true autonomy, rather than being bound by multiple compliance agencies working at cross purpose. We are absolutely sure the Indian students, the parents, as also the industry of international institutions have multiple ways to judge the institutions. The proposal of a single nodal agency for managing Higher Education and a single agency for research grants is a welcome move. But still here to there is discussion of having a couple of separate agencies in some domains. State governments want to be sure they have their oversight as Education comes under the concurrent list.
Hence it may still be business as usual in spite of the great and accelerated measures on the NEP2020 policy front by the central government , as also providing a wide range of guidelines for its implementation. The other change as a corollary would be a bit more openness and change of mind among personnel in government & compliance agencies and especially senior academics who are a part of it, be it state or central. This is very much reflected when on one side, all use the same terminology, yet their expectations and interpretations could be completely contradictory. We truly look forward to a day when compliance agencies look at us as their partner in transforming India and themselves as facilitators and not otherwise.
What is the role digital played in the evolution of the education system?
The adaptation and availability of digitalization enabled platforms, services and content has truly democratised education and made it more inclusive. Even as the digital divide still exists and the majority of education institutions would find it tough to afford all the ed-tech products and services, there is still enough to enable every one. Based on how much any academic institution is willing to search, learn, adopt and help themselves, they can deliver quality education, leveraging digitalization. An academic institution has to strategically plan and use its budget judiciously and draw additional ed-tech support.
This could include basic ERP or Academic Management System, LMS and its associated aspects of teaching and learning including content, course management, assessment and interaction, any time anywhere with a learner centric approach. Above all the digitalisation offers unique paradoxical aspects of the education system simultaneously, which might have been difficult to fathom earlier.
This could be both scale up and yet be personalised in delivery, delivery state of art education and yet be affordable and equitable, be able to at the same time cater and deliver customised local and global requirements and above all the digital twining provision in the age of digitalisation enabled automation offers the scope for design and R&D in every domain and provision for experiential learning even without advanced state of art infrastructure. All this would have been unimaginable without the digital transformation.
What has been the disadvantage of digital education?
In a country like India where in spite of the accelerated adoption of digitalisation post COVID, the digital divide still exists. Even basic access to collectively is a problem in many areas and then when we deal with students from diverse sections of the society, the ability to get high bandwidth based connections, as also the availability of the tools/devices for leveraging the digital tools and platforms is a bigger challenge. Hence the adoption of digital platforms, tools and services for enhanced delivery of education is a huge challenge. Many a times getting trained personnel to use the tools and services that digital platforms offer for delivery, is an even bigger issue even though we are relatively quick to learner and adopt. Finally the cost of many of the advanced facilities are still high for adopting them in a sustainable manner and help the students.
What is the career advice you would like to give to students?
If ever there was a time to be a student and get the best education, in a most affordable manner and have a diverse set of choices, to move towards once passion and aspirations, that it would be now. Hence it is up to the students to make use of this wide range of exciting avenues that are opening up. They need to make sure they have a clear grasp of the fundamentals and also choose skills linked to their passion. Next in the age of digitalisation they need to be reasonably conversant with the digital tools linked to their domain and also be able to leverage Analytics, Big data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for their areas of interest. Further link their knowledge and skill and apply it to their areas of interest using the opportunity of experiential learning that the institutions offer.
Thus do not be content with awareness of some information or exposure to a tool or skill. One needs to excel to retain a job or sustain a business, as most routine jobs will be automated. Most emerging jobs are not defined. But what is sure in the VUCA world is that, the new emerging jobs will call for not just some knowledge and skill based experience, but would call for ability to use one’s analytical to critical thinking and creative thinking capabilities to solve or innovatively add new dimensions. This could be in the service sector or add new functionality to a product or process and more be it a job or an entrepreneurial pursuit.
Thus for a career just having the marks may not be sufficient. They need to have the right knowledge, skill linked competence and aptitude in the first instance. But to survive and grow in this dynamic changing environment, when knowledge life cycles have come down to just 3 years or 36 years months and product life cycles can be as short as 3 to 13 months, one has to have the attitude to learn, unlearn and relearn. To sustain and propose one should be clear that learning to learn in the age of lifelong learning, adapting to change and having human values of ethics, integrity and emotional intelligence is key. Always be ready to add more value to oneself through skills. This could be in terms of ability to communicate effectively, take people along, innovate and create financial value for one’s ideas and more.
Thus it’s truly unlimited opportunities for students. All they need to be aware of is that change is the only constant and they should strive to have a strong foundation with respect to their fundamentals and an attitude of learning to learn for lifelong learning, for achieving growth and prosperity.