As part of the online Career Counselling 2021 series presented by Hindustan Institute of Technology & Science (HITS) along with The Hindu Education Plus, two webinars were hosted on Thursday.
The first on “A Career in Allied Health Sciences: Current Trends & Future Prospects”, presented a holistic picture of the sector in India. According to Dr. B. Rajashekhar, Founding/ Former Dean, Advisor for AHS Programmes, Manipal College of Health Professions, India is still 50 years behind the rest of the world in Allied Health Sciences (AHS) education and career. “In India, the absence of a central regulatory council has led to non-uniformity of curriculum, infrastructure, faculty, and clinical exposure,” he said, insisting on the need to review and drive transformation in this sector.
Dr. Jeyaprakash Shetty K., Vice-Dean, Professor and HOD, Pathology, K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, NITTE University, Mangalore, and Dr. R.W. Alexander Jesudasan, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science followed up with an overview of the various courses available ranging from Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees to Diploma courses in Medical Laboratory Technology and Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacology, Nutrition and Dietetics and General Duty Assistant among others. The take-aways included notes on the soft skills required, various avenues for work from hospitals to sports clinics. While one is not required to write the NEET to get into AHS programmes, each college has its own admission criteria, the experts said.
The session, moderated Ramya Kannan, Chief of Bureau – Tamil Nadu, The Hindu , can be viewed at http://bit.ly/HITSTHYT2
Interdisciplinary learning
The second session focused on ‘How a Liberal Arts education helps promote interdisciplinary learning’.
“Liberal arts education addresses what jobs and organisations expect in students, which is critical thinking and writing, creative collaboration, art aesthetic visualisation … while an interdisciplinary education offers a broad knowledge of multiple disciplines, improving contextual learning capacity, problem-solving, and critical thinking,” explained Dr. Afrose Farid, Professor and Head-Admissions, School of Liberal Arts and Applied Sciences, and HOD, Department of Fashion Design and Arts, HITS.
Dr. Salil Sahadevan, an independent education researcher, explained that the relevance of interdisciplinary education arose from the obsolecence of the linear path from education to career. “With newer patterns of work emerging thanks to technologies like AI and Machine Learning, there is a lack of certainty. Thus, it is sensible to have a broad-based plan so that we may remain pivoted and agile in an evolving job market…by continuing to pursue a wider range of topics that fascinate you.”
Offering a counter-argument, Dr. Joya John, Assistant Professor of Literature, Krea University, felt that there is a general tendency to reduce liberal arts education to a set of skills necessary for employability.
“A domain where the link between Liberal Arts and interdisciplinary education has become important is in the understanding of complex problems like environment, climate change or public health,” she said, elaborating how different disciplines have an interface when addressing these issues.
The session was moderated by Yashasvini Rajeshwar, founder and CEO, AuxoHub, and can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/HITSTHYT3
