Changing Landscape of Education, Institutions,Technology and Branding

  Traditional learnings emphasized more on 3R’s— reading, writing, and arithmetic, whereas future students, ready to enter the   industrial revolution 4.0 , are supposed to possess  4Cs— critical thinking , creativity , collaboration and   communication . Here it needs to be understood that future skills requirement does not take away the basics but simply uses the basics in a different way— to create, collaborate, communicate, and use critical thinking. Technology is a conduit for facilitating students acquiring the 4C's, thereby, paving way for edtech which broadly aims to improve the quality of education and enhance the learning process.   But this isn’t about learning how to use technology or even teaching with technology tools, it is more about students creating and constructing with technology. The best way to help students master these future skills is to change HOW we teach and learn. It is the process of learning, not the con...

        Edtech or “education technology," is the amalgamation of IT tools and educational practices aimed at facilitating and enhancing learning. It encompasses simple use of computers to online homework, informal mobile learning applications, gamification or virtual reality techniques.   Still in the nascent stage, it shows promise as a method of customizing a curriculum according to a student’s ability and his level of understanding by introducing and reinforcing new content at a pace the student is able to cope and manage. Although potential for scaleable individualized learning played an important role in edtech's ascendance, Covid-19 necessitated and fast-tracked its adoption as an urgency. It has the potential to create efficiencies, cost-cutting, standardization besides making learning accessible at any point of time and even to the far-flung areas that have never seen the light of development. In this way, it is destined to transfo...

      Publicly funded institutions in most developed countries enjoy high levels of autonomy, with minimal interference by the government in governance of these institutions. This brings home the fact that to be world class, research universities need greater autonomy. Good news about India is that the NEP endeavors making research universities completely autonomous, even to the extent of selecting and appointing their chief executives. Combined with full financial autonomy, as envisaged in the NEP, these changes are sure to usher in a new era in public research universities in India. Need for autonomy of universities and reiteration of the aim of improving global ranking of Indian universities, recently got an impetus from the Supreme Court of India also, which on its December 10 judgment, held that universities have the power to stipulate enhanced level and norms for grant of affiliations. The top court further observed that in current ti...

            What is a research university? Wilhelm von Humboldt is considered pioneer of the modern research university, for he founded Humboldt University of Berlin . Universities focusing primarily on research, offering   research programmes leading to doctoral degrees and are equipped with essential research infrastructures like modern libraries,   laboratories, can generally be categorized as research universities. Research universities espouse teaching and research. Such universities are also supposed to have faculty members with proven record of quality research. Some of the world’s most famous discoveries have been made through university research. In this age of knowledge-driven economy, research universities are one of the most critical institutions for promoting science, applied research, invention and innovations. Countries with thriving research universities are better placed to gain in the international market which is driven...