Education
Conclave 2016 organized by India Today in association with Sathyabama
University.
The recently concluded Education Conclave 2016 witnessed
a decent line up of eminent speakers from the academia, across the nation and ‘generated
more light than heat’, as defined by a delegate. And rightly so. Senior Fellow,
Centre for Policy Research, Ms. Kiran Bhatty left the delegates of the packed
house unsettled when she mentioned that the Government has no clue as to what
number of children today in the country do not attend school. Within the
Government there are varied figures provided by different departments. While
MHRD data reflect 3 million kids, Ministry of Statistics says 20 million and as
per the Census data, it is a whopping 40 million children.
The tone of the conclave was set right earlier
by Raj Chengappa, India Today Group Editorial Director, during his welcome
address when he mentioned that out of 3,500 colleges and 700 Universities in
the country only 140 odd has been accredited by National Assessment
Accreditation Council (NAAC) and out of
which only 32% managed to get a A+ rating.
The facts clearly illustrate the government’s objective to drive the
right to education being implemented as a fundamental right,is yet to gain
momentum.
Anita Rampal, former Dean at Faculty of Education in
Delhi University, spoke about the dichotomy which exists between skills
and knowledge. In the wake of government’s initiatives towards imparting
vocational training and impactful skills India campaign somewhere the
importance of basic knowledge and primary education should not take a back seat.
Basic education should be available to every child irrespective of their social
or economic background and the onus definitely lies with the state and the
education system in public sector.
The vision statement should include both education and
skill development programs. Skilling alone cannot replace education. While
skilling can make one eligible for a particular job, with education he can
probably even do better.
Brainstorming sessions were held on ‘Classroom without
borders, emergence of virtual universities’ and ‘New centers of excellence with
focus on research and collaborations’. Prof. Rupamanjari Ghosh, VC, Shiv Nadar
University and Rajendra Pandey, President, NIIT University touched upon the
importance of an atmosphere which encourages transformational research work,
filing of patents and innovative IPRs. Industries should be invited to collaborate,
partner or sponsor such research work where output gets monitored and
regulations should discourage silos from getting created.India need to move
forward from the present situation where education institutes today is over
regulated and under governed.
Prof. GopaSabharwal, VC, Nalanda University, stressed on
the fact that unlike age old traditional universities where every subject from
Arts to Zoology is taught, it is time we have more and more highly specialized
and focused universities on the subject.
Vineet Gupta, Co-Founder, Ashoka University stating the
fact that while India is one of the a major player in the education paradigm of
the world with largest education infrastructure voiced concern over the fact
that how only 2 Indian universities finds place in the top 200 universities of
the world.
In her key note speech by Mariazeena Johnson, MD,
Sathyabama University, Chennai emphasizedon how universities today need to take
a holistic approach when it comes to the overall growth of the student.
Physical education can no longer be termed as extra-curricular activity. It is a
mainstream activity should be clubbed with academics. Insisting on the
importance of research she said, in a university, prominence should be on
research rather than on teaching. Online
repository that maps research skills and expertise should be created and made
available for seamless collaborations.Commendable work at the Barefoot College International, situated in Tilonia, Rajasthan, 115 KM away from Jaipur, providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable in areas like Solar Electrification, Clean Water, Education, Livelihood Development, was shared by Meagan Fallore.
Also present were C. Raj Kumar, VC, OP Jindal Global
University; Gary Tubb, Faculty Director, University of Chicago Centre, Delhi;
Nicholas Booker, Executive Director, Passport to India; Kavita Sharma,
President South Asian University; Deepak Phatak Professor IIT Bombay; Kabir Chaddha,
Country Head Coursera; Padmini Ray Murray, Faculty Digital Humanities, Srishti
Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
The government’s viewpoint was shared by Reena Ray
Additional Secretary MHRD who represented Union Minister for HRD, Smriti Irani
who could not make it; and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, MoS, Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship.
A great initiative by the India Today group and
Sathyabama University, hopefully the ideas and propositions are recognized and
considered as actionable insights by the regulatory bodies.
