What India needs is an Education 3.0
We need to focus on quality and to
make sure every enrolled student finds the most direct path to achieving
learning goals
Education
and pedagogy the world over have constantly evolved to serve the needs of human
society. The first recorded models of teaching--be it in the gurukuls of India
or the academies in Greece--had restricted attendance only to the children of
the most fortunate and influential families, high teacher to student ratios,
flexible schedules and syllabi that were highly personalized to every student's
(and their parents') requirements, and a wide span of subjects from astronomy
to zoology. The students most probably thrived in such a model, but this was
far from scalable. Formal education remained the realm of the few for
centuries, while the bulk of economic output was driven by human labour.
With
the advent of the industrial age, we saw rapid technological transformations
that reshaped the meaning of scale in human society--from the steam engine, the
radio, the harvester, the satellite, and the internet, machines replaced human
labour over all the brute force applications. Through this shift, we began to
generate a real need for a lot more educated and trained people in the
workforce to manage these machines and design better ones. This feedback gave
rise to the modern education system as we know it--one that looks very much
like an assembly line for the many bureaucracies we surround ourselves with today.
Today's
education systems have adopted the broadcast one-to-many model because that is
the most straightforward way to communicate information to a large audience
simultaneously. In India, given our challenge of 200+ million students, this
factory model seemed the best solution as well. However, the time has come to
revisit our fundamental priorities where education is concerned, and to set
more ambitious goals for ourselves.
Over
the past six decades, the priority in Indian education has clearly been to
promote 100 per cent enrollment and rise against the inertia of drop out rates.
With a massive slice of the budget (Rs 99,100 Cr between 2005-2012),
large-scale policies like Operation Blackboard, the Mid Day Meal program, and
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, the national literacy rate is at 74.04 per cent (2011)
for adult literacy and 90.2 per cent (2015) for youth literacy (between ages
15-24). Some states like Kerala are at 94 per cent literacy. Let's consider
this stage of mass onboarding as Education 2.0 - primary education has become a
fundamental right and significant effort has been put into enforcing it.
Now,
we need Education 3.0 to focus on quality and to make sure every enrolled
student finds the most direct path to achieving their learning goals and job outcomes.
Government spending must go into expanding the install base of fundamental
layers of innovation - providing free wifi at all educational institutions, a
tablet to every student in every school and college in the country, and enable
every teacher and school administrator with a smart device. On top of this
install base, public spending must invest in and establish incentives for the
development of high-quality educational content that is multi-lingual and
multi-format and create a free open national knowledge base. The role of
teachers must go from information dissemination to content curation and the
aiding of problem-solving.
With
this intentional expansion of the install base of smart and connected devices,
we can create the first universal platform for educational innovation in the
world. Tech-enabled pedagogical models to enhance formal education can be
unleashed at scale by our most innovative companies. Levers such as
personalized and adaptive learning, multi-format simulations and practice environments,
improved data-driven continuous assessments, and lifelong learning and training
models will lead to a more capable and productive workforce.
Education
is no longer the privilege of the few, and that is a good thing. We now need
Education 3.0 to crank the flywheel and turn Indian education into the force
multiplier it can be.
TV
Mohandas Pai is the Chairman of Aarin Capital and the Chairman of Manipal
Global Education. He previously served as a Board Member and CFO at Infosys. He
has helped co-found over 10 funds that invest in areas like Deep Technology,
Life Sciences, and Education.
Pranav
Pai is the Founding Partner of 3one4 Capital, an early-stage venture capital
fund that leads technology investments in India and the US. He was previously
the lead Product Manager at EdCast and graduated from Stanford with a Master's
in Electrical Engineering.
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
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