Dr C Raj Kumar,
Vice Chancellor, O P Jindal Global University

Role of the government in higher education is coming down

One of the most fundamental challenges that we face in India is related to the lack of quality in higher education. Quality is the most significant issue in our universities. We need to be worried about the fact that not even a single university from India is one of the top  200 universities of the world.
When Universities from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taipei, and Japan figure in the list of  top universities, why are we lagging behind?
There is lack of innovation in our universities. The existing legal and regulatory framework of higher education does not provide opportunities for establishment of this innovation in universities. Even our own  limited experience of engaging and interacting with students across the country shows that there are very few people seriously  interested in academia.
We also know that the public sector in India is not in a position to fund higher education. If we look at the data of last several decades,  it becomes clear that the role of the government and public sector in the higher education space is coming down significantly. The  private sector is expected to expand and fill the gap. Unfortunately, the private sector is unable to contribute its mite due to various reasons.
A vast majority of private sector initiatives in the field of higher education turn out to be of mediocre, commercial and profit  making nature. The government needs to take a hard look at the higher education sector and enact suitable reform measures.

Elizabeth Shirley,
Director, IIITM, Kerala

Technology has to be such that it is understood by all rural and urban students

ICT has led to the development of many impressive tools for improvement in the quality of education. The concept of e-learning is  already taking root, but it is not wholly successful. Our country’s educators and professors face a challenge in changing the mindset of  people towards ICT.
The curriculum has remained the same over the years, but the transformation has happened in the learning methods of education.  India is a developing country, but to develop into a superpower, we need to have a world class education system. To strengthen the education of our country we have to invest in research. The faculty has time only for examinations and evaluation of answer sheets, but no time is given to them for research. Educators and policy makers have to think out of the box and transform the conventional education system.
Our system of education must reach out to all the 700 billion people in India, both in urban and rural areas. ICT plays an important  role in this endeavour. There are a number of ICT tools and products, but their ultimate success rests on the simplicity of their design and also on the IT literacy of the students in rural and urban areas.
India has a shortage of 5 lakh skilled workers and to address this problem, adaptive web based education system has to be  implemented.
This is activity based learning and focus shifts from static to active learning. To further change the style of education, multimedia and assistive technology has to be adopted for better learning. All children play video games. We have to devote ourselves  to designing computer games which help the child learn while playing. Digital learning with different levels has to be built in the games, so that the child can learn according to his capability.
A number of changes have to be made in our education system to make it efficient and effective for India to become a super power.

Payam Shoghi,
Principal, Riverdale International Residential School, Pune

Teacher participation is must for students to benefit from innovative learning methods

Now we are having lot of innovations in teacher education. Such innovations are happening not only because of the social and  economical changes, but also due to changes in social interrelationship, change in children’s aspirations and social mobility.  Important developments are happening in the field of pedagogy and we now have lot of new learning tools at our disposal.
The major shift that has happened in content based learning is that the concept of maintaining silence in the classrooms has gone.  Educational research has shown that some amount of discussion and noise in the class is important for learning to be effective.  Innovation has to begin from the way classes are conducted. The way teachers are helping to improve the relationship among the  students lays the foundation of cooperative learning.
Cooperative learning has two aspects. One is getting children to get together and work on a particular task together which they enjoy  thoroughly so that the output is good. The second requirement is that their relationship should remain intact. The children have to  learn to cooperate with other children and they have to improve their relationships.

Dr Angela Fawcett,
Prof Emeritus, Swansea University, UK, Vice President, British

Early identification of dyslexia can help children improve their logical and learning skills

The world of dyslexic children is quite complex. An innovative system for screening has to be in place for empowering the teachers to  quantify the problems being faced by such children. Teachers can evaluate the strength and weaknesses of the dyslexic children  through these screenings and can teach the children in ways that will lead to best possible results.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills. The dyslexic  children often have problems in putting the words together, they are unable to spell or write. The wonderful news is that appropriate  teaching can bring about an improvement in the logical skills, spelling, and also the confidence of the dyslexic children. But the bad  news is that with lack of support, the child experiences continuous failure and the problems become intense and generalised. A cost  effective solution has to be made to help the children in improving skills.
Our aim is to identify problems before the children fail. All the screening tests for dyslexia are done by school teachers who are  working on the basis of systems that have been developed with an eye on Indian realities. So, it’s being specially developed for India  by professionals like teachers, psychologists and special educationists. It helps schools to offer an inclusive learning environment where there exists a support system to facilitate the learning of every child.
As the testing methodologies also dwell on reading, spelling and writing skills the test leads to earlier identification of problems. It also provides a cost effective solution. The screening allows the teachers to see just how the term works under the developed profile and why the child is anxious.
We hope that DSTJ India will facilitate policy making that will eventually make it mandatory for children with dyslexia to be included  in the traditional classroom learning with adequate support and concessions across all states and national boards.

Lt Col A Sekhar,
Principal, Atul Vidyalaya, Gujarat

In the digitised, highly integrated, multimedia enabled classrooms of today, we are perhaps confused about the exact role of the teacher

Each time we talk about education, we talk about the students, the digital technologies, the parents, and many other important  stakeholders. However, the truth is that be it in schools or even in colleges, it is the teacher who is the fulcrum of the entire education  ecosystem. Perhaps we are not giving adequate importance to the teachers. This is a big mistake that we seem to be making.
Today we have a situation where a technology giant like South Korea is introducing over a lakh robotic teachers into their pre-school’s  curriculum. Does this mean that teachers are on way of becoming extinct species? Are they going to lose their jobs? In the digitised,  highly integrated, multimedia enabled classrooms of today, we are perhaps confused about the exact role of the teacher? If she exists,  then how and where? I purposefully use the term ‘she’ because 80 percent of the teachers in India are women. They are mothers, they  are daughters, they are daughters-in-law, and at the same time, they are teachers. Amidst all these responsibilities and highly fast- paced life, where do they have time to innovate, to look at teaching in terms of gizmos and big time thought processes that we are  talking about?
The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teaching-learning process.

Rupesh Kumar Shah,
CEO, InOpen Technologies

Educators are not focussing on the child’s innate capability of learning on his own

Computer Science is considered to be a skill based subject in schools. In 2006, a team of professors from IIT Bombay started a  research on the subject of, “How to Teach Computer Science in Schools.” Following the interesting facts that emerged out of the  research, we thought of creating a model curriculum around our research.
We talk about tablets and digital education, but what about the actual use of technology? If we look at the current scenario, children at  a very young age are exposed to technology. But educators are not using the innate capacity of a child to learn on his own. Instead we tell them to do it and we miss out on telling them how to do it. With the popularity of Internet, there is a lot of content available.  Computer Masti started by IIT Bombay has a very sound and constructivist curriculum.
Besides applications, the content focuses on thinking skills, stepwise thinking, and logical reasoning. It helps the child to develop the capacity of clear thinking. It also helps in the execution of day-to-day tasks by using technology in a step wise manner.  The content is  being used by almost 3 lakh students across 125 schools. The bottom line is that if we focus on building concepts in Computer Science,  learning and skills will automatically follow.

Dr Vandana Lulla,
Director, Podar International School

Blended learning leads to a much more efficient system of education

Blended learning is a concept where there is a complete reversal of the learning process. The concept of the classrooms gets flipped.  The child is no more a passive listener in the class, rather he is an active participant. The style of teaching in class first and then  following it up at home is the general norm, but with blended learning the teacher has to record her lesson without audience.
Imagine teaching in an empty room, recording the lesson and posting it to the students. The student learns and understands at home and comes back to you and challenges you. So, blended learning is two forms of teaching and learning. The first form comprises of face  to face learning and second comprises of technology like mobile, satellite TV, video conferencing, etc.
The aim of the bended learning is to create a generation of students who are in tune with today’s realities. This form of education seeks  to create independent learners; it challenges the teachers because you already have very brilliant audience in the classroom. Blended  learning creates a lot of learning engagement to make sure that the concept gets understood by the child at the end.
In the current education system, Children are not allowed to think out of the box and teachers just share information and dump it on  the children. The process should be reversed so that blended learning provides practical opportunities for learner and teachers to make learning independent, useful, sustainable and evergreen.
It is planned; purposeful management of student learning and making sure that you enhance the experiences of learning in classrooms.  When you use animation, video and sound with this flipped classroom, the child can be anywhere. He does not need the teachers  presence at all times. He has to rely on his own mind. This automatically leads to an improvement in the quality of the learning environment. This style of teaching facilitates the creation of active learns and gets rid of passive learning.

Kalpesh Bordawekar,
General Manager, Mexus Education Pvt Ltd

Pythagoras theorem can be taught with various real life examples

Today’s generation of children in the age group of 4 to 6 years are quite close to technology. They don’t need any formal classes or  training for learning the basic tricks of operating high-tech devices.
The important thing is that it is not school education that has made children conversant with latest technology; they have mastered the art due to their own curiosity. So if we really want our children to  learn something, we should try to trigger their sense of curiosity.
Let’s take the example of History. During our school days, History used to be a license to go off to sleep when the period started. But,  the same history can be made interesting. A teacher can take the students out of the classroom to teach them excavations of Mohen-jodaro. The teacher can make it more  interesting by grounding various items in the sandpit at the school playground.
The children would keep finding new items as they dug the sandpit. By using this strategy, the teacher can easily explain what  excavation is all about. Difficult topics like Pythagoras theorem can be taught with various real life examples.
Students, these days, are enamoured by devices like tablet, iPhone, etc. But teachers are phobic of such devices, because they are not used to technology. But, if they want to be effective in the modern classrooms, the teachers have to develop empathy for technology.
There is a thin line between an ordinary teacher and a good teacher. After gaining an understanding the challenges that are being faced by today’s teachers, students, and parents , Mexus has developed digital content solutions that make use of concepts like robotics, hydraulics, etc. The aim of these solutions is to address various challenges that teachers face in their classrooms.