Self-learning Is Best Learning

What are the challenges in higher education ecosystem and how private institutes are building up their repertoire? 
 

If we look at the higher education landscape, there are both - public institutions and private institutions. Of these two in the public system - everything is dependent on government grants, all financial aspects has to come from the government. Though within the institution, there is autonomy and a lot of things can be done.  

At a larger level, governance level - there are certain aspects which restricts institutions. But in a private educational system, there is lot of freedom, but that freedom and the governance depends on the leadership. So the leadership should have that kind of a broad mindedness; the agenda should only be quality education. If one is running on a business model, it won't work. 

In public universities, the agenda could be education, but there are some constraints. In a private university, there might not be financial constraints, but the mind set can be an issue. 

As you said institutions have freedom, can you describe how that freedom is used in devising the curriculum based on 21st century. What kind of thought process goes into revising the curriculum frequently because in government institutions that flexibility is not up to that extent? How do you go about that across disciplines? 

When it is an autonomous institution or a private university, there is complete freedom to develop curriculum. When the curriculum is developed, the main thing is how much effort is put in to develop that kind of a curriculum. How the ecosystem is understood and the curriculum is developed is very critical. 

People who frame the curriculum are the leadership and at the ground level it is the professors who have to do. So professors should have a exposure to the ecosystem as in what is happening in the industry. They should be ready to learn from what is happening around. Lot of freedom is there for autonomous institutions. 

Understanding the industry and curriculum curation is a little longer process. If more time is dedicated for curriculum development, it can really serve the industry needs in terms of human resources for a relatively longer period of time. How seriously an institution takes up this curriculum development process is very critical. 

That would require the faculty members to actually spend time in the industry. Is that happening in the institutes? 

It is happening to some extent, not fully. We have professors of practice, it is a good option. But about professors of practice, I have one apprehension that these industry people generally perceive academics as something which is a very easy job, as one can happily go and work in academics without wanting to take the pressure. But today academics is not without pressure. One has to work deeply. 

We have one whole and sole objective of creating the learners' experience. If that learner experience is to be created, it is very critical to be totally involved. One should be a passionate individual who want to change people and who want to change the ecosystem. Such people can certainly make a difference. 

What have been the challenges in basically expanding the infrastructure and also switching gears post-COVID with technology and NEP 2020 coming in? 

In case of infrastructure, today, there is an option that the whole course can be made agile and flexible. Post-COVID, the students' way of learning has changed. They prefer their own ways of doing it, rather than being very instructional, going into frontal method of teaching where the teacher stands on the dais and then lectures. They get agitated. Students’ feedback acts as a good mechanism for us to change many things. So, we collect a lot of feedback to change the system for the better. 

Too much of knowledge because of social internet is also not good. How much do you agree with it? 
 

Access to knowledge is good. Because self-learning is the best learning. Because ultimately, faculty only acts as a guide. 

It is very good that we have a lot of information. But we should know what we have to take, how that has to be synthesised and how it will be useful in our life. Students should be capable of deciding all of this. 

We will have to develop individuals who can really think. Thinking is very critical. They have to enjoy the process of being in that thought process. 

Credit system in NEP will help students go back after some kind of experience and then it will add value to what they are learning. Your views? 
 

NEP is almost developed on these lines only. It has made learning much more flexible and easy but we are not pushing the students. Everything is okay, but our system is still not equipped to handle this kind of a new system, because all of them whether faculty or students, they want to write one full examination. Still the mindset is not changed. It will take some time for them to change.