The seventh annual conference of the Higher Education Forum, shifted focus from the system to the students, and hosted some interesting discussions on focusing on students. Shraddha Kamdar reports
With numerous conferences held across the country looking at the key issues it is facing today in terms of higher education, there was one which sought to change the way things were looked at – and in that sense focussed on the main section of people involved – the students. The seventh Annual Conference of the Higher Education Forum (HEF), held on Saturday, March 5, at Durgadevi Saraf Institute of Management Studies, Malad, Mumbai was centred on the theme ‘Creating Student-Centric Great Higher Education Institutions’. Higher Education Forum (HEF), a voluntary non-profit group established in 2009, represents various stakeholders directly or indirectly associated with higher education in India.
“This day in a celebration as far as higher education is concerned,” said Dr. A. K. Sen Gupta, Founder and Convener, HEF. “We need to debate, discuss and reflect upon some of the issues in higher education, since there are a lot of concerns. Some of these we can’t do anything about, but the others can be thrashed out with discussion.” He mentioned that students have been agents of change globally since time immemorial, and therefore listening to the voices of the students becomes inevitable, explaining the concept of the theme.
Dr. N. M. Kondap, Director General, Durgadevi Saraf Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, in his welcome address, talked of the different labels that the current generation is being tagged with – like Gen X, Gen X+1 or even Gen Y. “Whatever the label, we must understand that today’s youngsters are different. They do not have much patience, and attention spans are reducing, so we need to be prepared accordingly.”
Explaining the concept behind the Rajasthani Sammelan Education Trust, Mumbai, which houses several schools, colleges and management institutes within its education campus, Ashok Saraf, President of the Trust, talked of the first school that was set up over six decades ago for educating the girl child. The Trust has come a long way since, and looks to empower students through all its institutes.
The Academic Keynote Address was delivered by Prof. J. Philip, President, XIME Bengaluru and Former Director – IIM Bangalore. “I believe that training is not limited to the classrooms. It has to be boundary-less from the classroom, to the playfields, and the auditorium to the hostel and the canteen.” He also mentioned the ‘human touch’, that is, to be able to offer the personal touch to all the students at an institute. He cited the human touch as a reason to limit the number of students at XIME to 180, even though the campus has the ability to accommodate a much larger number. He then spoke of the role the management, faculty and even administration would play for creating a student-centric institution.
Dr. Swapna Koshy from University of Wollongong, Dubai, provided the international perspective in terms of the smaller aspects that can go a long way in empowering students. She spoke of the need for innovation, the points of innovation and the best practices that she has encountered. She spoke of the diversity in modern classrooms with respect to several factors such as age, gender, experience, learning styles and so on, and how to innovate to cater to the needs of all the students.
Delivering the Presidential Address, Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, VC and CEO, Zensar Technologies, Pune, and Founding Trustee, HEF, talked of the progression of learning in a student’s life and how it changes with age and maturity. “Our students do not have a great attention span, every seven minutes or so we need to engage them differently with either anecdotes or other activities. If you communicate well, and can hold people’s attention, you can teach a class. You need to know what to communicate and how to do it.” He talked about creating agency among students to being agents of their own learning, developing life skills to improve their own lives and creating appropriate paths of learning with a judicious mix of teachers and technology.
During the day, Dr. Ela Goyal and Dr. Ranjith P. V. – HEF members and faculty at SIES College of Management Studies, Mumbai, presented their research report on the Survey of Student Perception of Higher Education Institutions. They talked of the factors that were most looked at like placement, brand equity, and teaching and the gaps that existed between the factors.
As the inaugural session laid the setting for the two panel discussions to follow, the thought of moving away from standardisation and towards more personal attention reverberated through the room. The session concluded with Dr. Sen Gupta’s thought on creating a multiplier effect after the convention, to have participants go out and spread the word.
Hosting the session, Dr. Lakshmi Mohan and Prof Parag Amin, core committee members of HEF kept the audiences enganed with their interesting insights. Core committee member of HEF Prof. Suneil Deshpande proposed the vote of thanks at the end of the convention.
Last year, Higher Education Forum introduced the concept of Innovation Awards under different categories of higher education. Continuing with the tradition, this year too, seven awards were given away this year as well. HEF instituted its own jury for arriving at the decision for the final awards. The awards were proudly received by the leadership teams of each of the institutions in recognition of the exemplary work done by them.
Dr. Parimal H. Vyas, Acting Vice Chancellor, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSU), Vadodara was the Chair at the ceremony. Dr. G. S. Singh, Hon Professor, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and Founding Trustee, HEF; Prof Sharu Rangnekar, Management Guru, and Dr. Hema Santhanam, Former Professor & Director, JBIMS, Mumbai gave away the awards.
Category: Commerce
Category – Science
Category: Engineering College
Category: Business School
Category: Business School (Certificate of Commendation)
Category: Emerging Institution
Category: Emerging Institution (Corporate Academic Integration)
Student centric institutions are driven by the management and faculty, who recognise the need
As the day progressed in talking about the student as the centre of the universe, the first panel discussion brought in several viewpoints around the theme ‘key enablers of creating a student-centric institution’. From empowering students to altering syllabi, and offering incentives to strengthening the basics, suggestions galore were talked about. According to Dr. A. K. Sen Gupta, Convener and Founder of HEF and the moderator of the discussion, it was necessary to realise that all the academic as well as non academic activities of anyone related to a higher education institution should circle around the student.
L-R Aparna Iyer, Baiju Mehta, Dr. Uma Ganesh, Dr. Rajesh Khajuria, Dr. Anupam Varma, Amit Bhalerao and Dr. A. K. Sen Gupta |
BCom student Aparna Iyer from H. R. College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai, felt that for making the system more student-centric, the students needed to be empowered and made to believe that they are a part of the policy making bodies. “I as a student want more transparency. I also want to point out that my curriculum is outdated and irrelevant, why can’t I ask to study something more applicable in the future.”
Dr. Rajesh Khajuria, Director, SMJV’s CKSV Institute of Management, Vadodara and Chairperson, HEF Gujarat Chapter, mentioned, “Creating student-centric institutions is a challenge across the world, not just in India.” He said that over the years he had found different elements to work towards this thought, including ethics, education, building excellence and empowering the students and the faculty by decentralisation of decision making.
Dr. Anupam Varma, Dean and Deputy Director, Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida, pointed out a few steps that could be taken. “First, the faculty has to take on the role of facilitators and mentors. Second, the syllabi have revamped to be aligned with the current industry requirements. Third, the pedagogy needs to factor in the students’ attention spans and intelligence. Why not offer them open-ended situations where they have to use their intellect to find the solutions to the problem you have offered?” he asked the teachers present there. The comments from Dr. Uma Ganesh, CEO, Global Talent Track, Pune, drew a lot of attention. She talked about the focus on what is expected from an individual when he joins the industry, and how these skills could be imparted by education institutions. “We need to ensure that the foundation is built strong and also that when students graduate, they know how to learn further. Make sure that they are prepared to deal with emerging trends and moving targets which perhaps cannot even be anticipated.”
Baiju Mehta, Founder Director iSutradhar and AVP, Project Management Institute (Mumbai Chapter) brought in an interesting perspective by talking about the parents. “Often, the parents drive the way the students make their academic and career choices, and we talk about industry and academia, but forget parents.” He also talked of how securing a job is a primary motive of any higher education degree.
The session was concluded by another student, Amit Bhalerao from SIES College of Management Studies, Mumbai, “I feel that today, my fellow students are far more aware of the specialisations they choose, and somewhere the institutes need to take handle our aspirations with care. I view a postgraduate programme as a link between my training and my future career, so why can’t students be a part of the design team of curriculum?” He raised other valid points on experiential learning, access to resources as well as flexibility in teaching and learning.
From projects to skills, development can enable teachers to provide value addition to students
Post lunch, an awaited session engaged the present delegates, who wanted to learn from the experiences of those who had real-life examples to share. The session, moderated by Dr. R. Gopal, Director – School of Management, Dr. D. Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai, was centred on the theme ‘Experience sharing of initiatives taken to facilitate developing student-centric institutions.
L-R Prof. B. S. K. Naidu, Prof. S. Sriram, Prof. Aruna Katara, Dr. R. Gopal, Dr. Vasundhara Padmanabhan, Partha Ghose and Ashok Kalbag |
At the outset, Dr. Gopal talked about student expectations, “Students expect a new and holistic experience. They don’t come to the classroom and listen to lectures. Today, they want value addition, not merely information.”
Prof. S. Sriram, Executive Director Emeritus and Distinguished Visiting Faculty, great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, talked of activities within the classroom and outside it. He mentioned the case method of studying, flipped classrooms, simulations and online and self learning. He offered the example of a compulsory subject, where students engaged in real time trading of commodities, and how the evaluation was based purely on the money they make in a certain period of time, after the governing factors were applied. This way, they learn the ways of the real world.
“Today’s students are more than ready to get their fair share of technological learning,” opined Prof. Aruna Katara, Preseident, International Institute of Information Technology, Pune. “I do not think that technology can take the place of any teacher anywhere, but it can supplement teachers in creating the student-centric environment,” she added.
Ashok Kalbag, Mentor, Vigyan Ashram Pune, and Founding Member, HEF, talked of practices at Vigyan Ashram, which started as a centre for imparting vocational skills to school dropouts. “We bring these learners in and change the narrative of education. I feel we should get in a ‘gardener’s model’ into education. Nurture each plant individually in terms of its needs, but also allow each plant to bloom fully.” He mentioned that most projects at Vigyan Ashram were live, and therefore even the teachers and mentors were learning new things with the students as and when they cropped up. These projects were based on real life problems, so that the content does not become static, and these are worked upon in teams, enabling learners to develop skills.
Taking the though forward, Prof. B. S. K. Naidu, Chairman Emeritus, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, talked of the initiatives taken for the students from the first semester itself, be it a special lecture series by though leaders, or activities to inspire students like consultancy projects and self discovery sessions.
Partha Ghose, President and Chief of Projects, Kalyani Steels, Pune, talked of industry collaborations with the teachers since he felt that the industry did not have the time or patience to train new recruits for a whole year. He talked of joint learning projects between teachers and students.
Dr, Vasundhara Padmanabhan, Principal, K. J. Somaiya College of Education, talked of student oriented initiatives within her field. “We organise content enriching programmes for the fresh graduates who come to obtain a BEd degree with us. This is for capacity building and empowering them with skills to be teachers in the 21st century, ICT, communication, presentation, among many others. I feel that teaching may not necessarily result into learning, and that is why today’s teachers have to make learning possible,” he provided the apt conclusion for the discussion.
