VSN Raju, Chief Executive Officer, Globarena Technologies Private Limited sheds light on how Indian universities can address the various challenges in education
What are the challenges faced by Universities today?
Universities all over world look to be recognised for the quality of education they impart, for their Research and Development activities, innovation, leadership and sustainability, which is aimed at contributing to both social and economical development. But due to the increasing number of universities there are many challenges that they encounter including unavailability of teachers, adaptability with changing technological trends in learning and assessments, unemployability of graduating youth and growing difference between industry expectations from academia. To add to the many challenges, the increase in the student enrolments is exerting a lot of pressure on their available resources both infrastructural and manpower especially in India the above challenges are manifold.
What can the universities do to overcome these challenges in the Indian context?
The government has recognised the current challenges in the education sector and to arrest these trends they have been coming up with much needed changes in policies and procedures through bodies like AICTE, NAAC, NBA, etc, moreover industry bodies like NASSCOM and CII have been suggesting academia on all platforms to evolve an outcome-based curricula. With inputs from all quarters, the universities are doing their bit but much is still undone especially curricula standardisation both for teachers and students that is industry relevant, standardisation of classroom deliveries and tests and examinations conduction; which mean the universities need to look at adapting to change quickly to be relevant and sustainable.
Can you throw some light on Globarena Technologies and its activities?
Our solutions and programmes are comprehensive, affordable, and scalable as they can be deployed both on the LAN or facilitated through the Internet or can be facilitated through Instructors Training. We have partnered with many Universities, educational institutions and government education department in improving faculty effectiveness, student engagement, and helped corporate to get right talent that has helped them to increase their productivity.
We are NASSCOM partners to deliver NAC 2.0 an assessment conducted by them to identify and provide entry level talent for the ITES companies and we also provide our examination management solutions (OnMark) both end-toend that includes onscreen marking solutions and examination conduction solution (OneX) to leading state Indian Universities.
| How can the Universities adapt to change?• It is time that the universities adapt to technology in all they do to reach students by promoting learning beyond classroom thorugh ICT based classroom deliveries and using technology in examination conduction or result declaration • Many private companies working in the space of providing education services have evolved innovative products. It will be a good idea for a university to look at tailor-made solution both for subject specific skills and generic skills. It will help them to expedite the process of change • It will provide the students with innovative learning and assessment possibilities and empower teachers to use technology in delivering sessions that will lead to standardisation and make classroom session interactive • The universities needs to look at collaborating with industry, academicians, experts and Peer universities in India and abroad using ICT while impartinf education • This way the universities can ensure that they have a scalable model to address to the growing student base and also can ensure quality course deliveries, improve innovation through R&D and contribute to well-rounded professionals to the industries that will help them in improving the socio-economic status of students and contribute to nation building |
