The Indian education system has often faced criticism for not producing industry-ready talent. However, the ground reality has changed, especially in the past year, with the pandemic accelerating the focus on quality and enhanced employability. With technology also changing rapidly, skills also have to be enhanced and upgraded.
Education institutes have stepped up their game and created world-class infrastructure, including state-of-the-art lab facilities and libraries and strengthened industry-campus collaborations resulting, in better project/internship models. The key lies in the hands of students who must assess each institution and what it offers before finalising the one of their choice.
Selecting the right institute
This depends on one’s aspirations and career plans. Almost everyone prefers to look at academic standing — ranking and ratings. However, students and parents should look beyond this and find out what else they offer. Some key elements to look at are innovative programmes with excellent curriculum, global networks, local partnerships with the industry, commitment to the community with a strong value system, unique programme management, flexible learning opportunities, blended teaching pedagogies, personalised learning addressing all student needs, world-class infrastructure, spaces for sports and extracurricular activities, exceptional faculty, placement prospects and a robust support system for students and parents.
Changes in teaching methodologies
Modern teaching methodologies deliver greater results in classrooms. Some current methodologies include collaborative learning, spaced or distanced learning, flipped classroom where students are encouraged to give short discourses and discuss among their peers, self-learning, gamification, visual, auditory, kinaesthetic (tactile) teaching, and crossover methods for achieving the required skills.
The demand-supply matrix of education
Industry-ready or industry-skilled has a new meaning, thanks to the rapid tech advancements in Cloud, AI, ML, Big Data, and other modules. While the majority of students graduating do their best to acquire these skillsets through internships and projects, these skills are not easy to achieve. On the other hand, demand in the industry exists only for students who possess these skillsets, resulting in only a handful making it to desired jobs. Institutions offering apprenticeships and not just internships have an edge in this area. Apprenticeship is a more in-depth and longer format of learning by working. Most companies do not provide hands-on internship experience but, rather, an extended college atmosphere. The industry has to step in and provide apprenticeships to supplement students’ learning.
Hybrid/blended learning
Students have the benefit of going through online/uploaded sessions in addition to understanding the concepts by practically doing experiments in the presence of a teacher. Both are crucial for education to be truly accessible to all. While blended learning supports accessibility, hybrid learning provides an advanced platform for students to satiate their curiosity.
The writer is Director, Hyderabad Campus, KL Deemed-to-be University
