We implemented design thinking, AI, and peer group activities as a compulsory part of the course: Mr. Vikas Singh

The changes are happening very fast; especially in the last two and two and half years. The world has become so progressive that we cannot even predict what is going to happen next. One cannot predict what is going to happen six months down the line. The educators were in a dark situation, but they have now devised ways to tackle the challenges in higher education.

ASMA’s “Thought Leadership Forum” on “Challenges and opportunities of higher education in 2022 and beyond”  was majorly a discussion on the predominant challenges in the field of higher education. The webinar was joined by eminent speakers of the industries. Mr. Vikas Singh, who is the Vice-Chancellor of ITM University Raipur. He is a Professor & Academician and has also worked as a University Establishment & Growth Strategist. Singh is an Accreditation (NAAC & NBA) Expert and has experience in the field of Capital Budgeting and Digital Marketing.

Mr. Vikas Singh discussed in the ASMA’s “Thought Leadership Forum” that initially, our Institute also conducted meetings with the senior members of the institute where we discussed what we need to implement and how we can tackle predominant challenges. The members of our institute planned that we need to gear up and pull up our socks to redesign ourselves if we want to remain our students reading.

Mr. Vikas continues to say what they have done to address the issues of higher education challenges. They realized that teamwork was very crucial for children. This will help the kids to perform on their own topic and look into the problem and find a solution for it by designing it that is the reason why we made design thinking a compulsory course. Design thinking is a compulsory course in all the programs whether a student joins the school of life sciences, school of commerce, school of law, school of arts, or any other program. Design thinking will train the students to design solutions for the problems. So, design thinking is the first change that they have incorporated.

The second change that Mr. Vikas incorporated was the inclusion of artificial intelligence as a subject compulsory for all the courses. The reason behind this is the penetration of artificial intelligence across all the domains and industry verticals. Mr. Vikas personally believed that artificial intelligence is something that one cannot dare to avoid. It means that every student of every program and every school will be doing a compulsory course in artificial intelligence and we are really thank you for the new education policy (NEP) 2020.

The third change which Mr. Vikas Singh talked about is the implementation of peer group activities in their institute. A solid IQ is important for this, but I believe that EQ and the social quotient are equally important in the years to come.

Therefore, these activities have now become compulsory courses. Industry experts from various educational institutes were extremely happy to see our initiative. Our institute has also focused on the concept of lifelong learning because it is something that is going to stay forever. He also said that they are also taking steps to upgrade the knowledge of their faculty members, they have started the colloquial practice which has now become a compulsory part of the teachers’ training in their institute.