As is commonly known, change is the only permanent thing. Systems, such as those in the higher education domain that claim to encourage critical thinking and desire to further scientific temper, should be open to implementing changes in their existing thought patterns and actions.
In this context, the current state of the technical education system in India needs a serious relook. Not a day passes when one comes across media reports stating that the vast majority of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates are virtually unemployable.
Unemployability may be due to a lack of rigour in the teaching pedagogy, or even possession of skill-sets that do not meet the immediate requirements of a growing economy. This aspect is quite alarming when one confronts the fact that India produces one of the largest pools of STEM graduates and yet falls short of quality manpower to propel our R&D and manufacturing growth.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) capture the imagination of the Indian middle class, who yearn for avenues to enhance their economic prospects and social status. Other than the IITs, there are several other successful education hubs that cater to this demand. Unfortunately, a certain form of stagnancy has begun to shackle this education ecosystem, and the ‘elite’ IITs have not been spared from this morass.
The IIT system and such similar institutions follow the teaching pedagogy of their highly successful Western counterparts. There exists a tacit assumption that a serious student first needs to be taught theoretical aspects whose practicality are not immediately apparent. This type of training makes a student first spend significant effort to analyse the underlying deeper mechanisms of real-life problems before coming up with a solution.
On the other hand, the modern industry prefers to hire vast numbers of educated workers who are expected to quickly come up with workable solutions.
This creates a dichotomy. That the vast majority of the STEM graduates do not need to use much of their theoretical knowledge is borne out by observing the methods employed by capable mechanics, electricians, etc. This has led to the university degree being viewed as no more than a ticket to a more prosperous future; the space for those interested in science for the sake of science and for purely enhancing their knowledge has shrunk tremendously.
Consequently, students have begun to question the need for spending their time, effort and money for an education pedagogy that does not cater to their career goals.
Education institutes in the US have responded feebly to this by awarding higher grades in spite of significantly reduced effort. This has come to be known as ‘grade inflation’, an aspect that is observed in India as well. A recent case is where a professor of a premier US university was fired for supposedly being too strict and awarding lower grades to students, thereby hindering their academic prospects for which they had paid high tuition fees.
Mirroring all this, the Indian higher technical education system is also languishing. In my teaching experience at IIT Jammu, I have noticed a marked decline in the analytical abilities and academic interest of students across all degree programs. We have noticed a strong correlation between classroom attendance and performance in the examinations. My colleagues in other IITs also report similar behaviour.
While blaming students is easy, one must not forget that they are a part of society and hence act as a mirror to what is happening around us.
Coupled with the falling basic education standards, there is a sense of apathy and arrogance towards traditional classroom teaching. Spending more time honing their skills through online education platforms such as Coursera, Unacademy, Udemy and so on is considered to be more useful. All this has led to a disconnect between the expectations of students and of faculty.
The disruptions from COVID-19 merely accelerated this process; one should not look at it as having initiated the process. Social media and online gaming addiction are factors, but by considering only these two, one would miss the actual socio-commercial changes that have taken place.
A way forward
Being witness to the academic system of an IIT, I am proposing some strategies that may be pursued to tackle this crisis. Some of these proposals may initially be unsettling for some faculty, since, as part of their duties, they are straddled with multiple administrative and research responsibilities that take up a significant portion of their time. Hence, managements and governing bodies must reassure the faculty that their support in adopting this new methodology will be appreciated and reflected in their career growth.
First and foremost, let us acknowledge that the attention span and concentration of students have reduced due to the advent of social media platforms. To address this, we can reduce the time of lectures from 50-55 minutes each per lecture into smaller slots of 30-35 minutes each. This is relatively easy to implement.
Next, to address the students’ anxiety towards industry-relevant curricula, we may envisage two types of BTech programs of the same four-year duration, viz. a BTech Practicum program and a BTech Honours program.
The latter will stick to the traditional approach of high emphasis on theoretical aspects and will cater to a minority of students who have such an orientation. The former program, which requires restructuring the current teaching methodology, can be tailored to appeal to the majority of students aspiring for a more industry-relevant curriculum.
Let us examine the proposals that can make this feasible:
i. Technical institutes of repute, including the IITs, have a vast pool of alumni who are leaders as well as employees of various core industries across the world. We should utilise their experience and invite them to suggest appropriate models that are representative of real-life scenarios.
For example, someone in the petroleum industry may require the student to know how fluids behave as they flow though pipes. The student may then be exposed to this and asked what he needs to know to be able to address it. Once the student understands the relevance of the fundamental concepts required to tackle such scenarios, it will be easier to convince him of the relevance of the corresponding laboratory experiments.
In this way, theory and laboratory classes can be directly interfaced with such experiential teaching-learning aspects. This will also result in a reduction in the disconnect between faculty and students.
ii. One may implement the above idea in a virtual reality (VR)-based framework. The medical industry has had considerable success in implementing this. Their students are exposed to multiple case studies in a virtual environment. Thus, when an actual medical emergency arises, they are not ill-prepared to handle it.
The adoption of this strategy has the potential to be a game changer in technical education. Industry-oriented problems can be embedded in such a virtual environment and the same can be presented to the student to address. This VR framework would need to be embedded in the curriculum. Otherwise, students will eventually seek it from other sources and neglect classroom teaching.
iii. Many IITs have begun hosting technology incubation parks in a bid to promote start-ups. They can set up an enabling framework that will encourage investors to fund such VR-based teaching-learning modules.
In collaboration with industry experts, our own students can assist in the design and validation of the technologies and laboratory experiments. This would not just invigorate and excite the student community, but also create a market-ready product that could infuse life into moribund syllabi and methods of teaching.
Finally, whatever the preferred method may be, it must be set against the realisation of the significance of revamping and reimagining the teaching-learning curriculum. In its absence, it is unlikely that we would be able to rekindle interest in the minds of our youth.
Samrat Rao is an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at IIT Jammu.
