Tackling challenges in higher education with online learning

Education and its future in 2022 will see a complete hybrid and blended learning. Today hybrid learning is complemented with different educational resources in order to generate better quality higher education with flexibility and adoption to the learners personality and other circumstances.

Hybrid learning, in one way, thus is helping to tackle the challenges in higher education.

ASMA’s Thought Leadership Forum webinar on Challenges and Opportunities of Higher Education in 2022 & Beyond will focus on discussing about how some of the major contributors and influencers are helping the Indian Higher Education System take full advantage of the opportunities post NEP 2020 by curbing the predominant challenges that the system has been facing. The webinar will throw light on the accreditation system, human resources, new age curriculum and many more.

Some of the eminent speakers of ASMA TLF 2022  webinar were Ajay Bhagwat, Director- Inpods India Private Limited. Mr. Ajay was the moderator of the event. Others include Dr Sasangan Ramanathan, Dean, Faculty of Engineering – Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Prof PB Sharma, Vice-Chancellor – Amity University, Gurugram . Founder,VC- DTU & RGTU, Dr Balakrishna Shetty, Vice-Chancellor – Sri Siddhartha University – Tumakuru, Bangalore, Dr. Kerron G. Reddy, CEO – AIMS Institute, Bengaluru, Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury, Adviser & Professor – Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Dr. Srinivasan .R Iyengar, Director – JBIMS, University of Mumbai, Dr. Swati Lodha, Director – MET Institute of Management, Dr. Rudresh Pandey, Director – GNIOT MBA Institute, Greater Noida, Dr. Vikas Singh, Vice- chancellor – ITM University, Raipur, and Dr Arvind Kumar Jain, Dean – Galgotias University.

Panel 1 was joined by Ajay Bhagwat, the moderator, and speakers including Prof. (Dr.) P.B. Sharma, Dr. Kerron G Reddy, Dr. Balakrishna Shetty, and Prof. Sasangan Ramanathan.

Prof. (Dr.) P.B. Sharma, the Vice-Chancellor of Amity University Haryana, Gurugram says that NEP has echoed a lot about value-based or sentiment-based education. Keeping the tripod of competency-based education, outcome-based education, and value-based higher education, the policy has put an emphasis on creating what is most important today, i.e, innovative & creative abilities.

Dr. Kerron G Reddy, CEO of AIMS Institute, Bangalore in the ASMA’s Thought Leadership Forum says that the major challenge for an educator is identifying and categorizing students as slow learners and advanced learners. For this, it is not just the assessment that has to be looked into, but the teachers also need to map up the aptitude of the students through hybrid learning process. They need to understand what skills are missing in the slow learners and what kind of confidence needs to be instilled within them.

Dr. Balakrishna Shetty, Vice-Chancellor of Sri Siddhartha University, Bangalore says that we do see changes in higher education policies as far as NEP 2020 is concerned. But the question is whether the changes are getting implemented or not. We can clearly notice the fact that the students in India are not performing well in their own country, but are doing good in other countries. Now, this is where the problem lies. There is a lack of training because of which this is happening.

Prof. Sasangan Ramanathan, the Dean of Engineering and a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science says that skill development is like a coin with two sides. It needs to have both faculty and students. And both sides need to work in synchronization. The faculty needs to impart the best knowledge to the students while the receptor has to be receptive.

Next, the 2nd panel joins in. This panel included the moderator Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury, and speakers Dr. Srinivasan R Iyengar, Dr. Swati Lodha, Dr Arvind Kumar Jain and Dr. Vikas Singh.

Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury, the Adviser & Professor, Daffodil International University, Dhaka was the moderator of the 2nd panel. He says that human capital is the stock of knowledge, skills, and social and personality attributes that influence someone’s ability to produce economic value from their labor. Undertaking higher education is one method of accumulating human capital, as this would meet the future industry demand, thus bolstering economic growth.

Dr. Srinivasan R Iyengar, the Director at JBIMS, University of Mumbai says that they give their students the lessons of current industry needs. This will indeed help in curbing the challenges in higher education. In the last pandemic scenario, extraordinary portfolios of candidates came out. This shows how the current business scenario is changing with the trending industry needs.

Dr. Swati Lodha, the Director – MET Institute of Management says that the right approach here is the change in mindset that we need. We ask educators to work in ‘Menterns’ which means working like both mentors and interns. We are ready to train and facilitate our students and at the same time we will have an intern mindset too.

Dr Arvind Kumar Jain, the Dean of Galgotias University says that in the present scenario, in higher education we have faced several challenges. Whatever knowledge we gained in the pandemic needs to be utilized for the future of education. The education which they are getting should be based on the society.

Dr. Vikas Singh, the Vice- chancellor of ITM University, Raipur says that the students should be able to look at their problems, and they can try designing a solution to that problem through hybrid learning. We have therefore made design thinking a compulsory part of every curriculum.

Lastly, ASMA’s Thought Leadership Forum is then joined by Dr. Rudresh Pandey, the Director of GNIOT MBA Institute, Greater Noida. He says that we are in an era that is changing. The time lapse between discovery and it’s application is decreasing very progressively. For example, the university researchers are facing a lot of issues of getting their idea approved as in future it will be used by different industries.