Three ideas for us to achieve our higher education goals

Context: We could count on collaboration among various institutes, a faculty training mission, and better software.

Challenges to the New Education Policy’s suggestions regarding Higher Education in India:

• Quantitative Challenge: 

• The proposed doubling of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to 50% requires setting up of at least one new higher education institution (HEI) each week for the next 20 years.

• Qualitative Challenge: 

• The PM’s clarion call to embrace critical thinking and holistic learning: is challenged by its formidable execution.
• Funding Challenges: As we rationalize teaching hours and expect faculty to do more research, we may see a rise in education costs, as seen in the US.

Three ideas for Higher Education:

• Collaboration among existing Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): to quickly create multi-disciplinary learning experiences.

• Many cities in India have multiple high-quality disciplinary HEIs. For E.g. Bengaluru has three top-ranked institutions—Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and National Law School of India University.
• Encourage collaborative programmes between institutions in the same city or region.

• Two things can help:

• Use of technology: Invest in the science of education, interweaving insights from neuroscience, social behaviour and digital technology to understanding learning techniques.
• A Standard Credit System: would allow collaboration and facilitate giving students multi-disciplinary exposure and experience across institutions.

• Ensuring Quality of Teachers: 

• Doubling the number of PhD fellowships in our best institutions, particularly for the humanities and social sciences;
• Well-designed faculty development programmes to enhance the skill- sets of existing faculties.
• A structured programme to attract Indian scholars teaching overseas.

• A good information technology backbone is needed: for effective administration and governance of the large multi-disciplinary universities envisaged by the NEP. 

• For E.g. The NEP envisages the creation of a National Education Technology Forum (NETF) of experts to advise on technology adoption.

• Need for a reasonably-priced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system tailored to meet the needs of Indian higher education.

• The government could use its good offices under the umbrella of the Atmanirbhar Bharat programme to catalyse its development by leveraging the capabilities of our companies.
• Out of the box funding solutions: are needed since Philanthropy and government funding alone may not be adequate to meet such rising costs.