Drivers of Higher Education: Technology, Innovation and Competency. 

Dr.B.Sudhakar, Director-SIMS

Faculty member’s preparedness to take up this challenge is important in introducing innovation in the teaching learning process to bridge the gap between industry and academics. As teachers allow students to ask questions. Make students learn by the answers you get. Connect to the world around them and find out the solution. Teachers should look into effective methods of learning and not into effective methods of teaching. If you are able to understand how the students learn, you as a teacher will be able to make the students learn. Students need to learn the application in problem solving. They should unlearn the wrong, relearn the right continuously to grow and be innovative. Remove the monotony in the classroom. Encourage students, involve them in discussions and encourage them to actively participate. This will help them in improving their thinking process which will result in innovative thinking. To create a culture of innovation, engage all, trust them and give them the opportunities, it will improve efficiency of them which result in increased satisfaction.

The evolutions of career options for students have changed over a period of time. Today we are focusing on making our student community as entrepreneurs with many startups coming. Attitude to learn and the compulsion is the need of an individual to have interdisciplinary knowledge. Integration of various skills is the responsibility of a student what is expected by the corporate. Improvement in teaching learning process towards inter disciplinary learning is the order of the day. This generation of students should be allowed to think and discuss and teachers have to be facilitators. Technology plays very important role today. Students are also technology savy. Business models are changing due to Digitalisation and technology. Startups and entrepreneurship is growing with the innovative technology and digitalization. Growth prospects in this are tremendous. Students have to understand the technology and use it appropriately.

Educational institutions responsibility is to prepare students for a life of careers and not focus on careers for life. Digital Transformation is changing the way the world operates. Educational Institutions are expected to foresee the change and prepare their students to this.

For employment today students require = Knowledge + Attitude + Skills.

The younger generation has to understand this and build their competency to be in line with the growing economy. Faculty of an educational system has to play the role of Influencer. To build the competencies, industry academia partnership needed. Backward vertical integration into curriculum, teacher exchange programmes with industry, faculty internships with industry which should be application oriented, Graduate life cycle tracking are some of the steps that can be taken by educational institutions. Educational institutions should teach the students to take risks. This will help them to be self driven to achieve their career objective.

Outcome Based Education is the order of the day. Student’s attainment is based on the outcome of the course. Hence if all institutions focus on this keeping in mind the current market requirement, student community will be highly benefitted. Education and Research are two important facets of educational institutions. Education is for creating employable resources for employment. An educational institution should also focus on research – in search of new knowledge. The research perspective should result in experimentation leading to innovations. The innovations may be in terms of products or processes or skills. Application of the experiment gives the opportunity for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship creates employment as well as value creation.

To conclude a student has to be passionate in learning. Intelligence, Hard work, Conformity are the expectations of the corporate. Corporate look into ability of an individual to express what he knows. Interdisciplinary knowledge is required today. Industry Institute Interaction is needed but it should be based on mutual consent and requirement. This relationship will help both the industry and academia to grow. Educational institutions should focus on improving the teaching learning process by using the latest technology, innovative pedagogy, create an innovative culture and environment for the students to build the competencies required for meeting the expectations of the corporate as well as ignite the spirit of entrepreneurship.