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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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