‘To implement NEP, teaching and learning must change’

Civil Society News, New Delhi

WHEN campus recruitments begin to falter, particularly at prestigious institutions, it is a sign that all is not well with higher education. Degrees are meant to at least lead to employment. There are also elliptical goals such as advanced research and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. If a good school system provides literacy, universities and colleges are meant to give an economy its cutting edge.

It is no secret that India has a serious crisis in higher education. Well-established universities have been declining. They aren’t as robust as they once were as seats of learning and haven't been able to measure up to modern needs. They need more nurturing and less interfernce by the government. On the other hand, private universities and colleges are of uneven quality, the majority of them delivering poor quality of education.

The Central government’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 seeks to set things right by 2035, but even after several years of its adoption much remains to be done. Dr Manu Vora, who is based in the US where he has worked in industry and academia, has been a part of the technical committee for the NEP’s implementation. Civil Society spoke to him for a perspective.

 

Q: What are the challenges the technical committee faces in implementing the NEP in India, especially those that involve immersive learning and practical engagement?

First of all, I think we are still wedded to the British system. So, the teaching-learning process needs a lot of improvement. As you know, it’s more about memorization and vomiting what you’ve learnt by rote in the exam. We need to move away from that and devise a new paradigm — that is, learning based on concepts and focused on principles and applications rather than mugging up facts and figures which doesn’t do any good to students or the faculty. That is one of the biggest challenges I see.

 

Q: Is this a challenge across institutions, whether IITs or IIMs?

Yes, this is where we need a paradigm shift. You do need to look at different ways of innovative pedagogy and continuous assessment. And, of course, we are used to lots of exams and exams and exams…which doesn’t do any good to anyone. I’ve taken many exams and I don’t recall any of them being useful in my practical life. It’s a waste of time.

There are alternative ways to assess whether students are learning in the classroom. Are they able to demonstrate that they have grasped the concept? Are they able to work on that concept to create something meaningful in practical life? This is where there is a big disconnect.

There are 10 to 12 issues in implementing the NEP 2020. We lack a sound structure to implement NEP across the board in all the higher education institutes. Without a structure it will all depend on the person at the top in the institute — the vice-chancellor, director or the principal. Once they move, things will fall apart if there is no structure or system behind it. That’s the biggest issue I see. We do not engage our alumni and industry experts in implementing NEP. It’s a tremendous resource which we need to tap. We need to make them part of the solution.

 

Q: The alumni being people who have gone out and know better?

Sure, and the alumni would have a soft corner for the institute where they came from. They would be willing to give back provided they are engaged and respected. Essentially, you have to put them on a pedestal. That’s what we do in the Western world.

Then there needs to be a strategic plan which should be communicated to all stakeholders, internal and external, vis-a-vis NEP 2020. We are also not very clear if there is a seamless transition between Classes K to 12 and the higher educational institutes because that interface needs to be managed. What happens at the transition point? Everybody is working in silos. 

What I see at ground level for the past five years is that there is no uniform implementation of NEP. People have taken bits and pieces of what they want to work on, worked on those issues and declared victory. That’s a real challenge.

 

Q: So, NEP is not taking shape as a policy?

No, because the policy is very comprehensive and has a 15-year window to implement all aspects. People are using a shotgun approach — pick and choose what they want to work on and then they are happy. That is the biggest drawback because once they think they have done everything no one can tell them to do more.

In India we don’t have a culture of sharing successes and failures. Otherwise, some institutes that have done good practices can share their experience with others who can learn from it and avoid the traps of failures. 

Normally this kind of transition will require some change agents. And definitely one needs to do some pilots to see how locally it can be implemented and what changes need to be done in terms of real implications.

The next two items I want to share is about leadership. Top leaders must have some idea about the sustainability of change, their role and responsibility, their commitment, involvement and so on which in general is lacking because it is delegated downward and they are nowhere to be seen. That’s how you don’t do change or transformation. Because without visible leadership at the highest level, people will not join the effort.

This is a project with a 15-year timeline. To implement it well we need to have a foundation in project management. In India we talk a lot, but we are weak in project management.

I teach project management at Northwestern University for the past 17 years. I know it’s a discipline we need to master because all we do is projects all along

 

Q: What’s doable does not get done, right?

Correct. And, of course, hand-in-hand with project management is risk management. In higher education there is no concept of managing risk. This was a revelation to me.

 

Q: What is risk management in higher education?

When you undertake a project, it means you are working on something unknown. And that means there is an inherent risk that something can go wrong. So, in NEP 2020 what can go wrong? One, you don’t have the right people working on the right issues. You don’t have a timeline. You don’t open up resources, and then you don’t have progress. The risk is all there.

We need to identify major risks and then have a mitigation plan. So if any of these risks do occur there is a gameplan to manage those risks. Project management and risk management are disciplines which need to be inculcated.

 

Q: And with this would go greater openness and a willingness to share learning?

Sure, and one thing I’ve been observing for the past 13 years in India is that students and faculty in general lack soft skills — that means leadership, decision-making, time management, teamwork, problem solving and project management. These are critical skills to get ahead in the workplace and make major contributions. Unfortunately, curricula does not contain these soft skills.

It’s a major gap. Industry needs soft skills more than hard skills and academia does not provide it. I have been propagating that idea for a long time. Some people are listening and most are ignoring (my advice).

 

Q: What is the kind of soft skills we should be focusing on?

Begin with leadership because anything we do on a project-by-project basis needs to have leadership traits all along. And not just the top leader. Members of the team should be exhibiting leadership traits at their level too. Along with leadership is decision-making. Mostly ethical decisions which is much needed in India because we are not at the top in terms of ethics. We are roughly halfway on the world’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Even on the Human Development Index we are way behind.

Third, time management. In India, hota hai, chalta hai. Most people don’t manage their time well and as a result things don’t get done. And then they do it hurriedly at the end, with mediocre results. Fourth is teamwork. Then come problem solving and project management.

 

Q: India comes with a lot of baggage in the higher education space. Not all are of the quality of the IIMs and IITs and IISc.  There’s a huge quality issue in private institutes in terms of ownership and teaching.

It can be changed. We need to educate our faculty in innovative pedagogy. Don’t just use 40-year-old slides which makes it boring for students. A lot of students are more into the subject than the faculty. They read up, they are up-to-date on recent developments, when they are in the IITs and IIMs. They don’t go to class because they know the faculty does not pull their weight. Some faculty just read from the book and things like that which does not excite anyone.

An article I had shared on Pedagogy and Continuous Assessment for Effective NEP 2020 Implementation, there are ways to do it. I have been practising it for 32 years as faculty in different programmes here in the US. What I find is that when you open up new ways of teaching students, they really respect it. They get involved and make the most of it in terms of real-life applications, teamwork. They read state-of-the-art articles, case studies, do a lot of discussions, learn each other’s perspectives, and build on it, do a live project, in a team setting and then share it in the classroom. These are ways of assessing if students are learning.

 

Q: You said at the beginning you need a structure to take anything forward. We are a diverse country in so many ways. What idea do you have for creating structural change? Where would it come from?

What I have suggested is a streamlined project structure for NEP 2020. You start with a council for NEP with the top leader in charge like the vice-chancellor, director, or principal. The council will select the top faculty with the experience and ability to get things done, share the NEP Strategic Plan with all stakeholders and use project management discipline to implement NEP with good results.

We set up a structure, a council, a champion, and then, according to AICTE guidance, short-term, medium-term, and long-term objectives. You make clusters and involve three different groups: faculty, alumni and the industry expert (Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh). The trio then works together to address specific items in the short-term, medium-term and long-term.

 

Q: This is institution-specific. What about across the country?

Each institute is supposed to implement NEP 2020. If the structure is in place at each institute, an outcome is likely to happen. Without the structure you will need lots of prayers and good wishes. But nothing will happen. Because, first of all, inertia will set in and you will not do anything. You will just get by because this is additional effort for them.

They don’t understand that with this effort you can take education to the next level. You can  put India on the roadmap to becoming the best in the world because the policy is very powerful. The only problem is we are weak in implementation and that’s where the focus should be.

 

Q: All you have to do is take a trip to Greater Noida. You see institute upon institute; whether they are teaching journalism or management or engineering, the standards are very questionable.

And that’s the challenge.

Q: We’ve seen headlines recently saying recruitment from the IITs and IIMs is actually falling. Are Indian standards declining or are we not able to provide what the world needs?

One of the issues I see is lack of soft skills. Students are not able to communicate what they can do for the company. If you can’t hold a conversation, you can’t convey your good ideas, what good are you for the company? That’s why they are left behind.

Even if they get a job but aren’t able to work well in a team, and here let me make a comment — in India everyone is brilliant individually. But when you put the individual in a team … just watch out. They are not cut out to be good team members in general.

In the Western world it is the opposite. Individually, the individual may not be bright but when they work as a team, they are fantastic. They will support each other and get great results.

Such things need to be inculcated right from kindergarten, through our education system. Focus on team work. Most of the projects we do are solo projects all the way up to getting the degree. There’s no concept of teamwork. We pick that up working with multinationals. But teamwork is the essence of success in industry.

That’s why I try to simulate that effort in my classes. There are teams who have to work together. They don’t know each other. They come together and take on specific roles like leader, communicator, researcher, editor, etc. And work together seamlessly to do the best project they can, using the concept given to them in class.

A paradigm shift has to happen. If we continue with what we have been doing in the classroom, how can we expect change? First, we need to mould our faculty in different ways of learning. Once they grasp those new learnings they can transmit that knowledge to the students. So that’s what I see as a major challenge.

 

Q: When we compare our higher education system with that in the US and with China, which did a lot of catching up, we don’t stand a chance of catching up, do we?

I think we can catch up provided we focus on the right things. Right now, the focus is on getting more money, building more labs, and building fiefdoms of whatever resources you can muster at the expense of others. Collaborations are not happening.

 

Q: What has China done right which we are not doing?

First of all, they focused on quality. Singapore, South Korea, China really understood that improving quality will improve education and outcomes. We are focused more on actions. We are forgetting about the outcomes. Everybody is looking for more resources, rather than doing the right thing and collaborating with each other because resources are limited.

If one institute has certain resources, the other institute should piggyback and collaborate with that institute. Those are the cultural shifts we need to think about. We can learn from others — the US, Canada, part of Europe. Access to quality higher education and outcomes of higher education need to be looked at properly. It’s a balance. Because if you don’t have access to the right people who have a good mind but they can’t get into the programme, quality suffers, institutes don’t provide the right skills so the unemployment line grows. Only a few institutes have better outcomes. The rest are questionable. I’ve seen some of the data. Seven percent of engineers are capable of doing core basic engineering, 93 percent have no clue what to do. That’s a sad story for our higher education institutes.