Learning in a competitive world
P.K.DORAISWAMY
Education is not preparation for examination but preparation for life. When life was relatively unchanging and predictable, even preparation for examination was good enough in most cases and life skills could be learnt as one went along. But during the last decade and a half, the world outside has become turbulent exhibiting changes where distance and time are shrinking thanks to information technology.
The fickle, assertive consumer demands, increasing competition, impermanence of jobs and organisations, the changing job content and need for frequent re-learning, easy movement of capital, people and technology across borders are striking features. Value-adding jobs alone are well-paid and in demand and routine jobs continue to be low-paid and decreasing in number. The government is no longer the main employer.
Transition shock
The transition from a protected, theoretically-oriented, spoon-fed environment to the harsh real world of cut-throat competition is likely to be unmanageable for students unless pre-planned. There can no longer be a disconnect between the real world and academic institutions. Experts expect education to be one of life long learning, reaching out to many rather than few and from a teacher-centred mode to student-centred learning. From a face-to-face situation it will be multimedia learning, from teaching it will be facilitating and learning for information would be modified to learning for results. In short, education as pure service would be more towards market-driven education.
Admissions have to be merit-based even within the management quota. Practising professionals and successful alumni should be associated with the framing and updating of the curricula and practising professionals should be associated with teaching as part-time faculty so that the real world ambience is to some extent brought into the classroom.
Successful alumni should be invited to motivate the students by sharing their experience and insights on the extent to which what they learned at the institution helped them, or proved inadequate and had to be adapted/supplemented by their own efforts.In addition, projects, visits and attachments in the curriculum which would help the students to relate what is taught to what happens in the real world can be included. To inculcate self-learning capacity in students, library assignments, classroom seminars, etc., along with teaching and evaluation methods have to be redesigned.
Redesigning pedagogy
The faculty should have a link with the real world through research and consultancy which would not only add authenticity and authority to their teaching but also help them to acquire valuable contacts and credibility with potential employers and facilitate placement.
Insitutions should network themselves with better-performing ones so that there is economy, efficiency and synergy in sharing resources and expertise.Instead of being stuck with traditionally designed courses, good institutions should have the autonomy and flexibility to start and close short term, just-in-time and just-for-you types of courses and make maximum use of information technology.
The findings in the Mckinsey study showed that 70per cent of the engineering graduates are ‘unemployable’ in the perception of the industry. Institutions are now beginning to have employability centres or finishing schools where soft skills like communication, preparing bio-data, facing a viva voce, working in teams, etc., are inculcated in students after they complete their formal courses of study. The directors of these centres would also keep in close touch with the alumni and potential employers and collect and keep data on employment opportunities and the employers’ expectations and pass them on to the departments to be suitably incorporated in the latter’s respective curriculi.
The brand image of the parent institution will give the alumni an edge in a competitive world. The aim should, therefore, be to give the institution a Unique Selling Proposition, that is, making its students a rare breed in the market.
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