Technology Has Led to Industry 4.0 and This Has Transformed Education 4.0, Say Education Leaders

ASMA India’s Top 30 EdTech Summit-2021 and awards were held on 19^th February 2021. The ground-breaking virtual event brought together various stakeholders from the education industry to discuss the challenges and opportunities brought on by the pandemic and how they are partnering with EdTech platforms to transform their institutions to revolutionise the way education is imparted.

The awards ceremony aimed to honour the change-makers, entrepreneurs and innovators in the EdTech sector.

The day witnessed 3 interesting panel discussions by education leaders from the Higher Education and K-12 education sectors.

Opening the day’s proceedings, Special Guest, Prof Bharat Bhasker, Director, IIM Raipur, delivered a fascinating opening address.

Prof Bhasker remarked, “The world is becoming increasingly digital; all industries have been transformed by the digital innovation in that sector. The giants have been created out of the disruptions that have happened. If you look at the global landscape by market capitalisation, the vast majority of the top 19 companies in the world are digital technology companies.”

He added, “Education cannot be left behind. The industry has been feeling the effects of technology; the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology in education”.

The first panel of the day discussed ‘Technological Advancements in the Higher Education Ecosystem’. The panel was moderated by Rajat Goel, Entrepreneur in Residence, Collegeunia and comprised, Dr Madhu Chitkara, Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University, Dr Sayalee Gankar, Vice-Chancellor, DY Patil University, Dr Atish Chattopadhyay, Director, Jagdish Sheth School of Management (JagSom), Prof Abhay Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, Pratap University and Vishal Khurma, CEO of Woxsen University.

The panel spoke about the technological advancements that have taken place in the education industry and how technology and innovation are transforming the entire education ecosystem.

Opening the discussion, Vishal Khurma, CEO of Woxsen University spoke about technological advancement in the Higher education sector. He said, “Today, we have a lot of processes and systems which are being digitalised. Before we talked about what is digitalisation; today we are talking about how we are going to be digitalised, we have moved from ‘what’ to ‘how’, so we have clearly accepted that digitalisation the new way our organisation or industry is going to work towards”.

He continued, “Most of the organisations are looking at getting from paper-based systems, processes and SOPs to a paperless system and that essentially to me is what digital transformation in the true sense is, not only in terms of the processes but in the delivery is given to the students during the course of their journey in the institutions”.

Speaking about how technology is transforming education, Dr Madhu Chitkara, Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University opined, “I think new normal will be very different because of digital technology. In the last couple of years, we have experienced a lot of innovative trends happening in the tech space and we have transformed our educational ecosystem in a bit way. An affordable world-class education is now accessible to everyone irrespective of their location, caste or creed. This has been made possible because of a mobile-first learning framework where everyone has a smartphone with high-speed internet”.

Dr Chitkara added, “AR and VR are the new technology tools entering our classrooms. The assessment rubrics have gotten a drastic realignment and it brings continuous comprehensive evaluations”.

Prof Abhay Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, Pratap University said, “Technology has been changing for years, but it has never changed our lives like it did in the past year. AI, VR, IoT and such technology have led to Industry 4.0 and this has also transformed Education 4.0”.

He continued, “I have heard that people say Artificial Intelligence is dehumanising, but the word intelligence has somehow been misconstrued with human intelligence. Technology is here to help us; we are not here to be buttressed by technology”.

Prof Kumar added, “In order to reach the masses, we cannot do without technology; we are all going to use technology in our daily lives”.

Sharing her thoughts on the topic, Sayalee Gankar, Vice-Chancellor, DY Patil University remarked, “What we are all experiencing right now is an advancement for us. Technological innovation has definitely created a positive impact in education”.

She added, “The time has come when all educational institutions have to change their business models. We are creating the future for the technology industry and we must become the institutions that leverage technology”.

Dr Atish Chattopadhyay, Director, Jagdish Sheth School of Management, added “There are three important factors to making tech-based online learning reasonably successful: 1. Empathy 2. Self-regulation 3. Digital readiness. EdTech is not a very new phenomenon, how we actually use this to the advantage of the learners and to make learning a co-creation is something ”.

“There will be more of a platform approach to education; it will not be the way it has been done traditionally. Education going forward we will see a de-institutionalisation of institutions”.

The day’s second panel discussion focused on the Higher Education sector and explored ‘How Technology can be Leveraged to Shape Student-centric Education’. The discussion was moderated by Prof BS Satyanarayana, Vice-Chancellor, CV Raman Global University, Bhubneshwar and was comprised of Dr Arvind Agarwal, President, Arya Group of Colleges, Jaipur, Jeet Marwadi, Director, Marwadi University, Prof RS Bawa, Pro-Chancellor, Chandigarh University and Dr Sumer Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Jagannath University.

Dr Sumer Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Jagannath University said, “This is the right time to develop capacity-building. There is no other way; once we are talking about accessibility and affordability, technology is the only way to go forward”.

Speaking about learning has to be technology-oriented, Dr Arvind Agarwal, President, Arya Group of Colleges, Jaipur said, “There are two aspects to learning and technology. Technology has become integral in learning. We must always be on the right side of technology. The pandemic has brought technology into our classrooms and now we are having a hybrid model and online teaching”.

He added, “Learning cannot happen only with technology. With the advancement of technology we are experiencing Industry 4.0”.

Adding his points to the discussion, Prof RS Bawa, Pro-Chancellor, Chandigarh University spoke about how technology can help make education more student-centric. He said, “The definition of student-centric will keep changing from time to time. The aspirations of the students today are different from what they were and will be different from students in the future. Therefore leveraging technology will have its own definitions and channels”.

Prof Bawa emphasised, “The pandemic has taught us that technology will help us to have a blended model. We should use technology to fascinate the mind of the student. Today’s students are easily bored; we have to create curiosity and fascination in their minds”.

Jeet Marwadi, Director, Marwadi University added very interesting points to the discussion. He said, “When we talk about personalisation in education, we need to go back to understand why personalisation is necessary”.

He highlighted a quote by author Oscar Wilde that says “Nothing worth learning can be taught” and he continued, “Teaching something does not mean that the students are learning. We need to nurture and enable an environment where students can learn and flourish; technology will come later. Teachers have to take ownership of creating and curating an environment of learning”.

The third and final panel of the day was focused on the K-12 education segment and examined ‘Gamification & e-Learning: A Paradigm Shift in Education’.

The panel was moderated by Amol Arora, Managing Director, Shemrock & Shemford Group of Schools and comprised Aditi Goradia, Managing Director, Billimoria High School, Panchgani, Deepa Bhushan, Director-Schools, CP Goenka Group Schools, Astha Kataria, Managing Trustee, Ashoka Group of Schools and Dr SK Rathore, Founder, Chairman & MD, Sanfort Group of Schools.

Deepa Bhushan, Director-Schools, CP Goenka Group Schools began by saying, “The complete education fraternity came together and took up the challenge and adopted the technology. We are re-looking at the way we are educating children. I do not see us going on to the traditional format; we need to move forward”.

Dr SK Rathore, Founder, Chairman & MD, Sanfort Group of Schools added, “Whatever the NEP has advocated, the pandemic has made us bring in a lot of the technology systems. Technology is going to change the school system”.

He suggested that to make education more accessible to those in rural areas, schools and government can work towards having a shared teacher model, “Now practices are changing with the times. This pandemic year has shown us that education can happen with fewer teachers. So the government can look at a shared teacher programme to bring access to education to the rural areas and budget schools”.

Astha Kataria, Managing Trustee, Ashoka Group of Schools spoke about how the classroom is being transformed because of technology. She said, “We need to see that education goes beyond the walls of classrooms. Virtual learning spaces are revolutionising the education process by allowing the child to learn what they are interested in. The curriculum cannot be rigid now; it has to move at the pace of the advancements.”

Aditi Goradia, Managing Director, Billimoria High School, Panchgani opined, “We were under the illusion that education is fool-proof, but the pandemic has been an eye-opener. There has been a lot more collaboration now because of the pandemic. Technology has truly made education student-centric”.