Education 2047 #Blog 09 (25 MAR 2022)
There have been frequent nudges to induce multi-disciplinarity in Indian higher education; the latest coming from New Education Policy (NEP2020) that offers an unprecedented opportunity for a big change. As a matter of fact, the world has always been and existed as a multidisciplinary entity. It is in the quest of unraveling it, that lenses of disciplines have been created and the pursuits in inquisition, have been linear. This has led to creation of tools, expertise, websites, journals, policies, institutions etc. enabling deeper diving, resulting in emergence of disciplinary silos. There has been shift though, in efforts for extension of disciplines to their intersection with others, ever since knowledge sharing became unimaginably faster through the internet. Also the scales began to tilt from conversion of resources into knowledge (getting deeper into discipline) to conversion of knowledge into resources (involving multiple disciplines), in the last few decades. Accordingly, experience (of handling knowledge) should become the defining characteristic of higher education instead of (handing out) knowledge. The learners should be coming to the institution to gather and contribute to the experience; knowledge is already available outside!
Prescriptive and restrictive as education is (unlike learning), promotion of multidisciplinary education may not ramp-up unless 'indiscipline’ is created in disciplines, encouraging hard-knocks at their boundaries and puncturing them. With least risk in ventures of such nature, our higher education system is well-suited to take up such adventures. Towards this, however, the construct of departments (as compartments of knowledge) whose presence is only going repulse multi-disciplinarity, needs to be re-looked. The institutions can be reorganized with its globally hyper-connected faculty members as the basic unit, getting profusely supported and incentivized for engaging with multiple disciplines. Identity of the faculty should no longer be with the department but with their forays into other disciplines. This should reflect in their peer recognition, stamp on social media, intellectual property and also, through sharing of the infrastructure, laboratories and knowledge they have acquired.
One reason why multidisciplinary education, for that matter even higher education has not evolved to the extent it should have, is that it continues to be built and advanced on the principles of pedagogy (the science of teaching children)! What can overwhelm us is that even andragogy (the science of teaching adults and the natural sequel to pedagogy) doesn't fit in now and its principles are outdated. With spatio-temporal-linguistic-economic barriers in access to knowledge liquidating, higher education needs to be remodeled and offered eventually on the principles of heutagogy (the science of self-determined learning) that will be subliminal to a digital/ virtual university. This is all the more needed now for learners who will live for 80+ years, yearn for more than 2-3 careers that will hinge on skills and lifelong self-determined learning will be one of those powering and empowering skills.
Presently we have fixed credits, fixed years and fixed curriculum; that's too much of 'fixation' specially for digital learners! Multidisciplinary courses must be offered unleashed, and autonomy given to learner with just the number of credits alone fixed, after all we have moved past into a knowledge society, ready to be conditioned by Artificial Intelligence. The institutions of higher learning must, therefore, allow not only choices/ combination of subjects but also blending of conventional and online modes of learning. They should even explore allowing teaching and learning in any language. Mandatory credits should, however, be there for practicals/ projects/ internships wherever hands-on experience cannot be substituted.
By design and intent, multidisciplinary education should be exploratory and it will stand gagged with conventional tests/ examinations. Instead of written examinations (which are linear and test known knowledge), there ought to be open-ended questions/ challenges for assessments, not for advancing to next semester but higher level of salience. The assessment can be made 360°- allowing assessment by self, co-learners, teachers and practitioners- so that learning happens even during assessment. Examinations to reject/ fail/ detain a scholar by an academic body is anachronistic when we are promoting digital learning; rejection can be left to the prospecting/ prospective employers whose expectations anyway do not match with that of academic bodies.
Lastly, multidisciplinary education and research will not gain traction in higher education to desired level unless the learners (and their parents) are made aware of career options/ opportunities during secondary education stage itself. Adequate interventions like personalized career counseling, use of data on student's past performance, aptitude tests in school etc., ought to be introduced so that students are clear about their career and also the edge for them due to multidisciplinarity. Further, recruitment rules for faculty should be modified by academic institutions themselves, who must induct/ associate as faculty- experts/ practitioners/ luminaries with diverse experience and not fitting into their departments. This is required for sustenance of spirit of multidisciplinarity, else we will see disciplinary silos continue to not only thrive but harden.
As reasoned out above, the present systems are designed to support and promote disciplinary education and there is a need to infuse non-linearity and allow an overdose of it. Towards this- new approaches, formats, styles, designs other than those existing (as insinuated above), are needed to propagate, proliferate and popularize multidisciplinary higher education in the country, in its 'Amrit Kaal'!
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Author is an Adviser with All
India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from
Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).
Views are personal.
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Previous blogs
Reconfiguring Education as 'APP' Learning
Rejigging Universities with a COVID moment
Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times
Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs
Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support
Moving Towards Education Without Examinations
Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance
Synallagmatic Industry-Academia Linkages