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Education: Smart Learning



Education is at cross roads today. Though the number of institutes have gone up significantly, most of them unfortu­nately provide an average education. Education has also become far more expensive and the wages are not able to justify the fees. There is hardly any correlation between a typical college degree and a career opportunity. These are some of the rea­sons why there is a significant talent crunch. A recent report published by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has estimated that India would face a “talent gap” of more than 5 million by 2012, as existing educational institutions do not impart employable skills. Policy initiatives are being taken to account for restruc­turing school education system, creating higher educational institutes including IITs, IIMs and others, formulating skill development policy, and so on. 
But the challenge is how does one nourish quality talent, rapidly develop the infrastructure, and provide an enabling innovation environment? While India has ample supply of tal­ent, it is largely trainable in nature, not employable. This leads to incremental training costs and increased downtime for the industry which is global in nature. Some gaps in talent suitability exists, however, they are being addressed through strong provider-level initia­tives and industry-led programs. Development of tier-II/III cities to support major delivery locations is imperative, along with upgrading the overall quality of talent pool.
Some of the key issues related to quality education include innovative classroom pro­cesses, enhancing teacher accountability, devel­oping and strengthening the institutional capacity to monitor learning outcomes and evaluate the impact of interventions, and strengthening the role of local bodies and industries in educational institution management, financial support and ongoing process training. The focus should be on problem-solving.
How does one achieve this when access to education itself is a concern? Most parts of the country lack good schools, teach­ers, and the basic infrastructure. CBSE estimates shortage of 200,000 schools. Only 1 percent of the students go for the post graduation and 0.1 percent for PhDs. Almost 20 percent of the engineering graduates are unemployed. A McKinsey report finds only 25 percent engineers, 15 percent finance grads and less than 10 percent of the other grads employable. The reason is shortage of quality teaching staff. While most of the govern­ment schools and colleges lack accountability and trained staff, the private schools have shortage of trained staff and a very low teacher-student ratio. The content is not in sync with the latest developments and industry trends. The focus is on reproducing content and not on conceptual understanding or learning to learn.
Some of these challenges can be overcome by adopting innovative technologies like the broadcast medium, webcast over internet, and content over the mobile phone. This is a possible way to rapidly expand the reach. It can help improve teacher quality and productivity through teaching aids, demos, and video, online refresher courses for teachers, and a big online teaching community. Tools like authoring, reviewing, and publishing help in content enrichment. The focus should be on developing technologies that help improve teacher effi­ciencies and learning outcomes.

Post Credit: Technology Review
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