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Reforming Higher Education System in India

Reforming Higher Education System in India 

                     Source of pic: Courtesy of Pyramid College

In the words of Queen Latifah, "There is no profession more essential than that of an educator and it's time for all of us to embrace and celebrate their importance and contribution to America's children"

The role of a teacher in building nation with sacrifice and humble contributions in various forms cannot be neglected. A teacher shows the right path and forms future officers to lead a nation further on higher side. A good teacher not only be an ideal in the minds of his students but also inculcate good habits in them like manners, etiquettes, grooming of personality etc. and these things are priceless.

The Government of India is taking initiatives to improve the economic and financial position of the nation. In last article, we studied how "Energy Deficit to Energy Surplus" initiatives bringing positive changes in the economic position of nation.

National Education Policy:

Instead of implementation of National Education Policy in India, the access to Free Education is still a dream for millions. Why education should be free in cost? Do you think it is costly to be literate? 

The cost of any service or goods depends upon demand and supply, the market determines the price as per the Economics Theory of Marshall.

If anybody is skilled enough then it is the result of his or her hard work, further if he has skills and abilities to teach and train others to achieve their goals, utilizing their capacities and capabilities then the person deserves to be paid. No doubt, for implementation of National Education Policy, there is requirement of skilled humans who can assemble the resources and introduce valuable products for Educating and Training others. It's must to develop software, design curriculum, doing research, put new ideas with innovation and all these are available in less quantity than required. That's why price is there. 

The generation of skilled youth has become a challenge and the countries like India are suffering due to less skilled youth. The old software, old teaching methods, old training practices made the country hampered with huge unemployment which further increased the level of poverty. The desktops with C, C++, Cobol, Pascal, Fortran languages and with old software can easily be found in the colleges and institutes of higher education. It is must to improve the infrastructure to develop new skills in the students of higher education. The new era of technology including new app development languages like Phylon and Ruby; required to be made available for adopting new-age technology to compete the Multinational companies.

Required change in Higher Education:

In India, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) are constantly bringing change in the Higher Education System to make it as per the needs of the industries. The emphasis is upon revising the curriculum of courses by making it learning outcome based. How higher education differ from the school education? At present, there is not much difference because at both places, the students are reading and learning the prescribed syllabus and then giving examinations to qualify. It is required to innovate the work of students reading and learning after the school classes i.e. 12th known as senior secondary.

Why placements are not more and how to produce talent?:

It is required to bring digital learning platforms in the higher education system which is possible by using information technology. The YouTube and other channels of interactive video lectures are already in use and the students are watching videos to learn and develop their skills. The industries are also waiting for their prospective officers to run their organizations with better skills and the universities are being inspired to produce more talented students who can easily be grabbed by the human resource managers working in companies. The placement of students is a prime concern for all universities, business schools, and polytechnic institutions; and the placement can only be possible if the students are equipped with the required skills as identified by the industrialists. They know their requirement and the universities should know the curriculum to be taught for meeting the requirements of the industries, companies who are the prospective employers.

Creating industry-friendly environment at institutions:

Just making change in syllabus will not work smoothly, it is required to bring the environment of industries and companies inside the universities to train the students after completing the courses or degrees.

The students should take Education as a zeal for making life successful. Whatever work is being done either small or big; the success of the work depends upon the desire toward that work and devotion for learning. Nobody is perfect and doing work is a step towards perfection by attaining knowledge and skills. If a person doesn't stubborn and he is ready to learn from the failures, then success can be guaranteed provided efforts are put even after the happening of failures.

Digital Transformation in Higher Education:

It’s time to promote digital learning and there are institutions which are really embracing digital learning, a holistic approach to digital transformation. It is not only online teaching rather prefect module to ensure learning among the students. It is required to implement the online teaching with activities and personalization to inculcate the skills to perform better. To improve employability of the students, it is must to create online job portals by the Higher Education Institutions and also provide career counselling to the pass-out students, it will improve the chances of employability and the students’ admission will also increase in the institutions. The digitally mature Schools, Colleges, Universities, and Institutions can change the entire picture of India and other developing economies. 

Introduce the following in the Higher Education Institutions: 

(i) Digitally integrated Marketing, (ii) Recruitment Strategy with agreements with the Manufacturing, Industrial, and Service Sector Companies, (iii) Use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) units, (iv) Records Management of Students scoring high and teachers producing talent, (v) Digital Social Marketing Strategies for promotion of the activities. 

*Copyright © 2018 Dr. Lalit Kumar. All rights reserved. 
Copyright © 2021 Dr. Lalit Kumar. A few rights reserved. Use this information in the public interest.

This content is written by Dr. Lalit Kumar Setia; a renowned author and trainer. He completed his Doctorate in Commerce from Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra and MBA in Information Technology from GJU, Hisar. He also wrote two books, 15 research papers, and organized more than 200 Training Courses during his working period since 2006 in Haryana Institute of Public Administration, Gurugram. The article was published on 16th December 2018 and last updated on 2nd December 2021. The writer can be contacted on lalitkumarsetia@gmail.com 

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