REENGINEERING EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS FOR MAXIMIZING LEARNING

Education 2047 #Blog 11 (17 DEC 2022)

This blog builds up a case for liquidating dropout/ detention/ failing of students from our education system; it’s outrightly anachronistic when knowledge is getting democratized and virtual learning is mainstreaming. After 12 years of formal education and competing to get a seat (investing years and parental earnings), each youth entering higher education should be facilitated to realize the full potential and contribute as an active member of the workforce, even with impairments. Failing to pass examinations and missing a degree amounts to losing a graduate, in the absence of choices that can be offered in higher education; it is a huge loss that we tend to ignore. Fortunately, this can change with features like Credit Frameworks, Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), National Academic Depository (NAD), Digital University coming in the wake of National Educational Policy (NEP 2020), but embedding them in the system of the past will not deliver results. Zero loss in throughput from higher education, or for that matter education, must be what we should aim at, in our Amrit Kaal (time span till 2047, the centenary of India’s Independence).

The new features can best deliver for the country, if the learners have choices to move effortlessly and pick any combination of subjects that align with their tastes, ability and competence, riding on Virtual Learning. Youth in the productive age group should not get detained only because their choices are not offered by an institution; it’s a national waste. Let me, however, start by dwelling briefly on the ingress into the higher education system, before coming to how some systems should change, mindful of the future that stares at us.

The highest level in the 5+3+3+4 pattern proposed in the NEP for the school system corresponds with the secondary education, which is currently heavily prescriptive and is guided by what a school within the reach of a learner offers. This is the stage to prepare the learner to get ready for a professional course and thus, the best time-span to discover what he/she needs to pursue. The students must be given the option to pick up any subjects, skills, competencies or languages that appeals to them in the merged 4 years, and this must be facilitated by the schools and not dictated. There should be profuse use of technology to help them identify what they can excel in through assessments (and not examinations). Today a smartphone riding on Artificial Intelligence tells us not just what interests a student, but also suggests what can be the next best thing to do. It is here that we must facilitate the students to get imaginative and creative; and also pick up skills to become a lifelong learner.

The schools/ boards must issue certificates identifying what they are or can ace in (and not what they are lagging in). Having figured out what they can excel in, the students must be tested for aptitude, for admitting them into higher education. It is an exercise in futility to test their knowledge in subjects which they have anyway studied and are prepared to advance their knowledge- by learning either in closed classroom or from open platforms; by experiencing either from practicals or from real world. This approach should conserve the time (of students) and money (of parents) which goes into coaching, that neither imparts skills nor values for the youth stepping into higher learning. 

With learners now having free access to knowledge, it will be experience (experiential learning) that will take over knowledge as currency in academics, in the times ahead. It is the quest for experience that connects the learner with the real world, assesses the real abilities of a person, and prepares a confident person for society. This is also needed for a creative and innovative society where thinking is privileged over memorizing in our academic institutions. It will, therefore, be incumbent upon colleges/ universities to not just teach for enhancing knowledge and examine learners on it but also on experience that packs knowledge, abilities and skills together. Examinations as we have them currently, are not befitting the emerging systems, as our memory functions get outsourced; we need to be Moving towards Education without Examinations.

Higher education institutions have existed to impart knowledge to its seekers and acknowledge its acquisition. During the industrial age, the seekers were grouped by institutions keeping in view resources (including knowledge) available with them and maximizing the output, guided and conditioned by the industrial considerations. The grouping by an institution naturally should have been based on prior knowledge level of learners, but was based on age instead, as ascertaining the level of knowledge was loaded with uncertainties and thus, classes (and classrooms) were created, for the ease of institutions not learners! This has persisted due to demand of similarly skilled employees in batches from the industry and even education institutions. Is class (or batch) the best way to maximize learning? Certainly not when we know that each learner has a different pace and style of proceeding. Let’s not forget, it is differences that enrich our experiences, their absence impoverishes us. Shouldn't then classes (smacking of conformism) be dismantled, and let the learners be left to organize themselves in groups under the guidance of mentors?

Technology is galloping at an exponential rate whereas humans will continue to race at a linear pace. This will create wider gaps in knowledge which will continue to be widening. It will be impossible for a person to keep pace with complete knowledge in his or her field, especially the teachers. The effective teaching spans will come down and this will happen faster; and, we will need multiple teachers which will be impossible to be available in one institution, a gap to be plugged by virtual learning. Teaching basics will no longer be a classroom thing and the teachers will have to repurpose and reboot themselves for higher levels. Essentially, the teachers will have to give up their role as transmitter of information (Adhyapak) and that of knowledge (Upadhyay) and instead  elevate themselves as Acharya (one who imparts skills), Pandit (facilitating deep insight into a subject), Dhrishta (having visionary view on a subject and teaching learner to think in that manner) or Guru (awaken the wisdom in the learner). The existence of these terms in Sanskrit/ Hindi/ other Indian languages is a pointer to the education system that we have had in the past and its reconstruction should not be difficult.

As far as institutions are concerned, in the times ahead, the fittest will be those who gear-up and remodel themselves to transact in experience (experiential learning and not information/ knowledge). For staying relevant, they will have to train their teachers to support, promote and enhance learning instead of knowledge which stands universalized (and needs aggressive push to be made accessible to everyone on this planet). Likewise, curricula shall have to be replaced by problems/ challenges, even as societal benefits take over academic achievements, ethics over accomplishments and reputation over degree.

We are a few decades now being wrapped in the world-wide-web and in this span, teacher-centric education has flipped to emerge as learner-centric. Obviously the systems and structures cannot remain same for the topsy-turvy and should be re-engineered. With ever rising demand for education, for maximizing learners for learning and learning of learners, the recipe would be to- rejig education, re-mandate institutions, reorient teachers, restructure classrooms, recraft curricula, redevelop books, replace examinations; and, all this for zero academic loss, in and for an Atma Nirbhar Bharat!

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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.

 

Feedback appreciated in the comment box below. 👍

Previous blogs

'Rubricating' Education for Better Learning Outcomes

Indiscipline in Disciplines for Multidisciplinary Education!

Re'class'ification of Learning for the New Normal

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

UPRIGHTING 'STEM' EDUCATION WITH 7x24 LABS

Education 2047 #Blog 04 (13 AUG 2020)

Imagine the scene in a physics laboratory, a 12th class student struggling to find out refractive index of a bar magnet. Sounds bizarre, isn't it? Possibly his teacher was wide-off the mark of what Benjamin Franklin observed, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn”. The teacher started his job well by telling and teaching but did not finish it by involving the student who, evidently never learnt what was intended to be. This is a first-hand experience narrated in one of the alumni meets by my teacher Dr. J.K. Sharma who superannuated as HOD, Department of Physics, St. John’s College, Agra. He was to examine students appearing in Physics practical examinations conducted by the Board of High School and Intermediate Education Uttar Pradesh in the late 80s/ early 90s, somewhere in a remotely located and poorly connected school in adjoining Etah district. The students who are supposed to perform two experiments had already been allotted by the time he reached and were busy doing them. This student was allotted two experiments- the first one required tracing magnetic lines of forces formed around a bar magnet using a magnetic compass and the second one, to find the refractive index of a prism; both experiments interestingly required the use of a drawing board and get recounted after 40 years.  

Dr. Sharma confronted this student, who would have been next attempting to trace magnetic lines of forces using the prism! Clearly, the student had never seen a prism or bar magnet and upon being questioned, the teacher admitted that students were indeed never shown the items and kept locked, as the school feared them of being stolen. Curious Dr Sharma asked why the items were taken out that day and what makes the teacher confident that they will not be smuggled out that day, the teacher pointed towards a person seated at the gate to frisk the examinees leaving the school! A passionate teacher as he is, Dr. Sharma took the student aside and demonstrated the two experiments leaving him happy but he was himself unhappy having hit the pit, which actually is the tip of the proverbial iceberg!  Isn't it that doors are shut not only on the laboratory equipment but also on the aspiration of millions of students wanting to explore the world from the prism of science, drawn by the magnetic charm of discovering the world, by themselves? Yes, the practical component of science education isn’t placed where it should be and this is glaringly visible at higher levels as well! STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering & Mathematics) education isn’t upright!
 

One of the commonly heard grouse heard, again and again, year after year and from employer after employer is that our students are not employable and lack basic skills. The fact is, this deficiency in skills and expectation at work-places is linked with the culture and environment that we offer to our students not just in our colleges but in our schools and even our homes. Working with hands is considered lowly, degrading or subservient and abhorred, fully cognizant that skills like swimming or surgery cannot be learnt using touchscreens! It is through practical experiments and experiences that psycho-motor skills develop which are measured in terms of speed, precision, distance, procedures and techniques in execution. Unfortunately, the practical work, the practical classes and equipment/ infrastructure for practical- all stand marginalized or ignored, evident from the low weightage accorded in academic scores; largely because of being out of comfort zones and requiring extra resources and efforts from teachers as well. No wonder ‘working with hand’ to conduct the experiments and feel them, prompts ‘washing  hands off’ instead!
 

It is a common observation that in most of the well-to-do and aspirational families, the children are diverted to studies whenever they are confronted with manual activities or physical labour. The children too, these days find an opportunity to glue to their devices and gadgets, which at best put their thumbs into labour. Most grow up these days without having seen how food is cooked or laundry done or toilets cleaned. Most move into colleges without ever seeing any gadget opened for repair or having carried a load themselves. Thus, a disconnect with the real-world starts from homes- with head, hands and heart seldom getting the chance to work together and the trend continues in the formal learning spaces.
 

In our schools, we have compulsory science education up to the 8th grade and laboratory work for sciences till 12th. This is an opportunity for the students to confront and appreciate the very basic and simple concepts in science and fire the scientific temper. But the reality on the ground remains that most teachers tell their students to concentrate on the theory by assuring them of good scores in practical examinations. Many use it as a ploy to force students to take private tuition from them and give them good marks in return. In many cases, it is left to the lab assistants to facilitate while teachers bunk the classes. I am sure in many more, the practical classes are conducted to complete the course and not with an intent to complete the learning. Lesser importance to lab work in secondary education is also attributable to the near absence of the test of experimental skills in JEE type competitions. 

It is not a surprise that experiments get axed when it comes to funds for maintenance of lab infrastructure or equipment. Even the classroom/ lecture hall/ open-air demonstrations which were common earlier stand sacrificed to theory, which may otherwise introduce the students to a physical phenomena whose explanation they may look for or search in theory class. Lot of well-intended  activities are identified in the textbooks, to be performed by the students or teachers or both, but one wonders if they are conducted in true spirit. Clearly, the importance of experimental work remains low and many of the skills that should actually get picked in schools, remain wanting.  Possibly we have not developed the right tools and methodology to assess the performance in practical; one more reason why practical component remains at a low pedestal.   

 

Our system grades students as eligible for science and technical courses for which the eligibility conditions require the student to have 'learnt' sciences (mathematics included). These subjects have a practical component dominated by theory, and the format is such that theory precedes or drives the practical for hands-on training, sounding too prescriptive for graduating students.  With the lab-work that we currently have and the ‘generosity’ in its evaluation, one can see the learning stripped of skills. With rapid advances in information and communication technologies in recent decades and their incursion in education, there are multiple opportunities and options to teach/ learn theory and the same is not true for practical which remain irreplaceable. Shouldn’t the cart and the horse be placed right? 

 

Experience too suggests that it is practical classes that cause better appreciation of sciences, whet the interest of students and motivate them to move towards career in sciences. And this can be realized effectively only if the time-table is centered around practical classes and not the theory. Yes, the STEM education should be built around “7x24 labs” in the academic institutions; the labs should open at least 7 hours a day and for 24 days in a month, to ensure that capital investment is genuinely utilized in full measures. The basic idea should be to expose the students adequately to connect the real world they experience (both inside and outside the labs) with the theory, motivate them and charge them up to dive deeper. Technologies like Immersive Virtual Reality, Internet-of-things, Robotics, Drones, Holograms, Volumetric Screens, Mobile Apps, Wearables, Haptic interfaces can further amplify the joy of learning STEM. It should, however, be remembered that mobile apps, simulated or virtual labs can help in completing the course, not the learning and should, if at all required, be used for repeating a physical experiment.  
 

With free access to knowledge thanks to the internet, the discovery learning can be reinvigorated and the minds made more inquisitive, imaginative and creative. Why not let the students, for example, observe a natural phenomenon like a rainbow and then look for its explanation in the laws of reflection, refraction, total internal reflection and dispersion of light. After all, in the real-life too, we begin to talk first and then learn the grammar; learn to ride a bicycle and then appreciate laws of motion; begin to eat and realize the importance of nutrients and it is not the other way round. In short, we experience the world around us first and then connect with the knowledge, resulting in learning that outlasts the one acquired through memorization. Why not then get the pieces right- teach theory as an extrapolation of practical instead of peddling as interpolation of theory?  With (theoretical) knowledge fully democratized and accessible at a click or gesture (or thought in future), the differentiator for academic institutions in future will be the practical or experiential learning imparted in their "7x24 labs".  

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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.

Feedback/ comments are appreciated and can be given in the comment box below. Thanks!

Other blogs

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

Technology Roadmap for Education 2035 by TIFAC (Highlights)

DISMANTLING MACAULAY'S SCHOOLS WITH 'ONLINE' SUPPORT

Education 2047 #Blog 03 (23 JUN 2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic gives us an unprecedented opportunity to rework and break-free from the education that was shaped by policies beginning with the historical Minute on Education by Thomas Babington Macaulay (who may not be the only person responsible to set in the decline) almost two centuries back and evolved in response to the needs of an industrial society. All through, the education was prescriptive and intended to create initially clerks, then managers and of late coders- trained to follow the manuals and rule books. Educational institutions also were raised and configured to turn-out workforce with attributes of, basically conformists at the workplaces. 12 years of schooling-  classified into primary (1-5 grade classes), upper primary (6-8 grade classes), secondary (9-10 grade classes) and senior secondary (11-12 grade classes) became the standard in India's school education. The upward movement towards higher grades could happen only if the student passed an annual examination, involving reproduction of what is taught by the teacher or is there in the books, in certain fixed hours. The examinations other than those at the 10 and 12 level classes are generally conducted by the schools while national or state level boards conduct for these two (secondary levels), crucial to the students and their parents, for deciding the career. 

The secondary schools have served as a source for professionals/ work-force who get educated for 3-5 years in colleges/ polytechnics/ standalone institutions, before getting the first degree/ diploma/ certificate and moving on. The schools are affiliated to one of the boards of examination where students typically learn two/ three languages, Mathematics, Sciences and Social Sciences at 9 & 10 grades and given options for choosing Science, Commerce or Humanities stream, for 11 & 12 grades. Clearly, with fixed choices (limited by the offering from the schools), the education at this level has been constrictive and restrictive for students in pursuing their interest and in turn, realizing their full potential. The examinations are conducted only to stamp the product as pass/ fail based on rote-learning and top-scorers privileged with more opportunities and prospects. The creativity and imagination get muzzled completely when the students are in 11 & 12 classes, most of them taking coaching for entrance examinations in parallel and in the process, the secondary education becomes secondary to coaching! The distortions brought about due to this, at least for the students entering into the engineering that we see closely, have been alarming and show up during their four years course, visible in their lacking of skills that make them well-rounded and job-ready.

Intending to facilitate smooth initiation of engineering students into the new settings and make them develop awareness, sensitivity and understanding of the self, people around them, society at large and the Nature, the AICTE has introduced a three-weeks mandatory Student Induction Programme (SIP). With an apt acronym (that is administered right at the beginning of graduation) the SIP- not to be offered as a classroom activity- allows students to get a fresh breath that doesn’t smell of coaching. The programme covering sports, fitness, yoga, creative arts, literature, universal human values, extra-curricular activities etc. not only exposes them to what they missed in yesteryears but also begin to appreciate the importance of being a responsible and ethical professional.

SIP has been conducted across India for the last three years now and the feedback tells volumes about the life and times, travails and tribulations of the freshmen before leaving the school. From these youngsters, it turns out, as is also visible, that there is an acute and irrational pressure on them- the schools, teachers, parents, neighbours and even the colleges they aspire to join- all conspiring to see them score 95+ marks! This is where our schools and clueless teachers go completely wrong and are forced to, as they are mandated to, squeeze out students having been tested only in what a school can teach or books tell. This is a glaring limitation on the part of these elements of education and misaligned with higher education completely. Few precious years of adolescence are lost in the race, at times, without realizing what lies beyond the race. Alas!

There is a pressing need to reboot the secondary schools that must prepare, for the knowledge-age that we are in, youngsters armed with 21st-century skills and ready for careers and skills that are yet to emerge and; not 90+ scoring students but smart learners- the ones trained to learn on their own, agile and resilient too.  This requires moving away- in the secondary level itself- from memorization of knowledge to its application, from fixed syllabus to open questions, from fixed-hour tests to exciting challenges and from memory tests to problem-solving. There is, thus, a need for realignment of educational systems and subsystems, to empower the tech-savvy learners, by making use of ensembles of technology and adoption of online learning must happen, to transform education at the secondary level.

It, however, needs to be understood that online education does not and should not mean making teachers deliver instructions before a camera,  conduct quiz/ tests using a social media group or putting a camera on the head of an examinee or tracking their eye movements. The greatest benefit that online learning brings in (by reinforcing the traditional mode and existing with it), is the flexibility in the education system and also empowering the learner by increasing the choices of subjects (including skills, competencies, languages) of interests and calling; facilitate learning from anywhere and anytime (and any language in near future); in creating one’s learning pathway; in choosing a source of learning/ teacher; collaborating with peers in learning or experimenting; taking assessments as per convenience etc. All these are unthinkable in the current ossified structure that privileges knowledge over skills and not just rewards the toppers but treats harshly those whose passion lies beyond what schools offer. Needless to add, the present system is also harsh to drop-outs, late-bloomers, left-out, left-behind, second-chance seekers etc.  

All through the years and decades, we have been worried about the enrollment and dropping-out of the students; but here comes the historic opportunity when we can focus on empowerment and allow dropping-in (at any time or age) of anyone who wants to learn. Yes, the schools (and boards) must grow-up and extend opportunity to learners to choose what they want to, which wasn’t possible hitherto because of limitations of physical infrastructure, topographical disadvantages, shortage of teachers etc. They must, instead of teaching, testing, grading (A-F) and certifying in 5 odd subjects, consider exposing a learner to 10-20 subjects+ skills+ competencies and issue a certificate with all that a learner scores 'A' in. The students must be trained to generously use resources including the internet and other technologies and make the learning discovery-based and pick-up skills, to stay a lifelong learner.

A realization needs to dawn on the schools/ boards that memorization or rote-learning limited to 5 subjects is not going to help the students anymore, as 21st- century students no longer need to be skilled and tested in this! This also becomes clear from the list of 12 attributes identified for a 21st-century graduate of which only 3 are technical skills! Accordingly, administration of courses and memory-based examinations, that too decided by a school/ board in which it has strength does not make sense anymore. Let classrooms, books, teachers and examinations not be a leash anymore, gagging the potential of a human. The schools (and boards) themselves not being able to adjust the sail (by mainstreaming online education) will mean, they are off the line while they push their students to come online.  

The realignments may leave the teachers confused and fuming as they have been at the centre of the education system of the industrial age. Fortunately, for good teachers online learning is the best thing to happen; they can now be reached by students of schools other than theirs or even in other locations anywhere in the world. Likewise, the disinterested students forced to sit in their classroom can find an online teacher of a subject that genuinely interests them, anywhere on the internet. Thus, with contented teachers and students, the sum will be greater than the parts!

Another unsettling concern may be the examinations/ tests to which I can say, that with online learning mainstreamed and advanced technologies deployed, the pathway can be cleared for moving towards education without examinations. The questions to test the memory can be built into the online material, embedded into apps, gamified or left to classroom interactions. The testing of higher-order cognitive skills can be done through projects, group activities or evaluation by peers/ teachers/ mentors. This may produce even more students ending up for admission in courses for higher education/ jobs, for which we already have entrance examinations/ tests. Such examinations/ tests can also be made less taxing with more focus on aptitude than on subject knowledge which a student is already trained to deal with, in the secondary school.

Is there anything wrong in these realignments of education by integrating online learning that empowers learners, earns wider recognition to teachers, frees up schools of factory-like functioning and provides motivated learners to higher education or jobs? Even if your answer is in affirmative and in favour of status quo, it needs to be noted that learners have moved on as digital natives, navigate virtual spaces effortlessly, experienced sufficiently in the art of searching, choose their source of learning independently, have even stopped writing and taking notes; and also that shift is happening towards "personalized and adaptive learning" aided by technology. Let's not forget, India commanded one-third of the global GDP for most history when our education system was apprenticeship-based (characterized by personalized, analytical and exploratory learning).

The online learning and adoption of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Immersive Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Robotics will continue to tilt the scales in favour of a learner-centric system. The global pandemic gives us an unprecedented opportunity to regain the lost muscles to build, not an assembly-line but an assembled-line of motivated, ethical and smart workforce for India, that has committed itself to be self-reliant.      

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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.

Feedback/ comments are appreciated and can be given in the comment box below. Thanks!

Other blogs

Moving Towards Education Without Examinations

Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance 

Synallagmatic Industry-Academia Linkages

TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP FOR EDUCATION 2035 BY TIFAC (Highlights)

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