MICROCOSM FOR FUTURISTIC EDUCATION

The 10th Annual Indian Education Congress (IEC) organized at Taj Yeshwantpur Bengaluru on February 26, 2020 focused on creating a dynamic and engaging classroom experience for students through the role of new technologies such as AI, robotics and gaming.

- Gunjan Joshi

While the upgrade from education 2.0 to 3.0 took a few hundred years in our country, newly emerged technologies such as automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things led us to Education 4.0 in just three decades, feels Ritu Marya, Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur APAC. The 10th Indian Education Congress, graced by dignitaries like Dr Raj Khatri, IAS, Principal Secretary, Revenue Department, Bengaluru, commenced after an inaugural lamp lightening by Dr Sandeep Sancheti, Vice Chancellor, SRM Institute of Science and Technology. Speaking about the theme ‘Creativity in Formal Learning: Raising through Informal Learning’, Sancheti said, “The word innovation has now been replaced by disruption. Though these are overlapping domains but disruption means faster and bigger change. Disruption is the change which we don’t accept and that goes unnoticed.” One of his oft-quoted line is that a teacher should always tell his or her students the reason behind studying a particular subject or course, its relevance, where it is going to be used and how is it connected with past and future.

EDUCATION : THEN VS NOW

Institutes are now more focused on creating employment rather than imparting knowledge, according to Sancheti. Teaching is now replaced by learning and classrooms are replaced by MOOCs, industries, society, etc. He advised educators to become facilitators more than just a content deliverer, besides urging them to adopt an aggressive research, development and innovation approach. Namita Dalmia, Director - Investments, Omidyar Network India feels that the education sector needs to set standardized outcome benchmarks that measure the value of an investment.