Hari Krishna Maram, PhD is the Digital Brand Ambassador and Chairman of Vision Digital India. Maram has served many statutory, corporate, social and educational organisations on various capacities. His work in management education for over two decades has been recognized by Government of India and intuitions of high repute on numerous occasions.
Maram has travelled over forty countries to get a global perspective on management. He is a research guide and faculty at leading Indian and international universities respectively. He has carried out many CSR activities including the activities concerning environmental conservation.
In an interview with Santosh C. Hulagabali for Open Interview, Maram shares his observations on technological developments especially issues and trends in educational technology and how to address them in the light of growing highly-competitive industry requirements. He is of the strong view that there is an urgent need to foster the up-to-date technological skills among the students to make them employable in the suitable industry.
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What is the global trend in digital education and how India is doing?
We are witnessing an unimaginable boom in the technological innovations worldwide. Some technologies are either replacing the existing ones or improving the existing technological platforms significantly. We can now see- artificial-Intelligence-as-a service, virtual reality, autonomous devices, robotics, edge computing/IoTs, hyper automation, extended reality, blockchain technology, ‘computer vision’, human augmentation, etc. Many of these technologies have profound impact on many sectors including education.
Schools are slowly observing technology as a chance to develop teaching ways and resonate with students on a technology level. No matter what the age of a person is, nearly everybody owns a smartphone. at a time when online resources are widely used including the common platforms like Google and Wikipedia, learning to change our teaching ways by incorporating right technology is crucial.
India has already started implementing many technological tools and techniques in order to bring about some change. Smart classes where the teaching with a whiteboard, chalk, and markers are now a thing of the past, and teachers have shifted to making use e-learning systems to teach, assess and certify. Teachers are sending notes, references, and other information sources online to encourage students to connect remotely, experience the virtual learning environment and study better. They are also encouraged to take online tests, quizzes and assessments online, replacing the traditional homework or assignments.
There is a huge divide between education and highly-competitive industry requirements. Why are our educational institutes unable to bridge this gap and meet the growing corporate needs?
A large amount of social and economic problems like social group pressure, inadequate infrastructure, poor quality of academics, non-current curriculum, and many more reasons are causing a disconnect between education and industry. Therefore, there is a need for radical transformation of the education system and a reorientation of tutorial programmes to change students to develop skills that have value content surpassing the specialized information and experience. To perform effectively in an exceedingly dynamic and technologically enabled world, we have to stop and disassociate with the old pattern of education pedagogy that holds less relevance for industrial requirements. So, teaching new technological skills, entrepreneurial skills, t problem-solving skills, and all other necessary skills. It is because skills are hard to gain but required to be placed in industry. Therefore, increasing access to skill based education by the utilization of technology and ameliorating student-teacher ratios are need of the hour.
How is your ‘Vision Digital India’ doing in this line preparing students to be highly industry-ready?
As I said before, with the industry requirements getting specific, it is important to nurture skills that will help students fit into job roles that are being offered to them. For this, we closely interact with the corporate and they share their rich experience with us. We offer courses that are very contemporary depending on the demand from the corporate side. Some of these courses are on Digital Marketing, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, etc. By bringing the real world into learning spaces, we are making students get a feel of things to come when they actually join the workforce. We are regularly engaging with the highly experienced industry practitioners to share their expertise, experiences and resources to help in building more skilled and talented pool of prospective candidates.
How other educational institutes can join Vision Digital India’s mission and impact/reach out as many as possible?
Our mission is to make people equipped with the contemporary technology and tools. Keeping it in mind, we have been offering courses like digital marketing (Google Certification), IBM Cognos Insight and IBM Watson Analytics (in Association with IBM). After doing extensive internal research, we developed many courses in such a way that engineering, management or any other students or executives will be in a position to understand the technical concepts and will be able to learn the subject by putting efforts. Any educational institutions joining hands with us, we will surely help their students acquire required skill sets and help them get good career opportunities.
You are a globetrotter and often meeting experts, educationists, technocrats, diplomats, policy makers, etc. of different landscape and capacities. In the context of digital education, what common issue or concern you find in your discussions with them?
Some of the key issues addressed in our discussions is the lack of sufficient skill development initiatives or provisions for teachers who are required to integrate new technologies into their classrooms. Rigid lecture-and-test models of learning are failing to challenge students to experiment and interact in informal learning. I also get to hear that there is a gap between the vision of delivering personalized, differentiated instruction and the technologies offered to making this possible.
The issues and solutions that you have raised in this interview, how well are they addressed in Draft National Education Policy, 2019? What is your impressions about the (scope and coverage of the) policy?
National Education Policy ignores the ground realities of research quality in higher educational institutions but sets enormous goals for the country. The policy envisages that all higher education in India will become multi-disciplinary by 2030. The new education plan will give us graduates who are creative and adapt in critical thinking. Their multi-disciplinary training will ensure that they will always remain employable even as single-disciplinary jobs become automated. However, all of this will be of no use if there is no implementation on the ground. The crux of the matter is implementation. Vision without action is a shallow thought. One of the fundamental aspects to achieve the policy goals is the quality of teachers. Perhaps having a strong minimum wage policy along with qualification may bring rigor.
What would be the future trends in digital education in India by 2025 and how Indian educational institutes should be prepared for this?
Our world is changing into a place where we can now learn anything, anywhere as per our convenience. It is observed that in many fields our experience is only a small part of our ability to learn and achieve. To me, the future of education seems exciting as well as scary. Education system in general and schools in particular must evolve to embrace new learning techniques to captivate students.
By 2025, we will observe some drastic changes in the education system of India. We will have customised learning experiences that will make learning more personalized- making information and knowledge accessible around the world. This will be possible by using IoTs augmented devices that will give students better access to learning materials, share homework assignments with parents and enable teachers to assess student’s performance in real-time. However, while adopting new technology, we must also concurrently maintain integrity of knowledge in areas like literature and history that will help create well rounded people. This should be at the core when we are adopting new innovative technologies, that is, when we are bringing about a digital transformation in the field of education.
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Note All the answers/ opinions expressed in this interview/document are of the interviewee.
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Cite · Hulagabali, Santosh C. (2019 December, 2). Hari Krishna Maram: There is an urgent need to nurture the contemporary technological skills among the students to meet the highly-competitive industry requirements.[Blog post]. Retrieved from: https://openinterview.org/2019/12/02/hari-krishna-maram-there-is-an-urgent-need-to-nurture-the-contemporary-technological-skills-among-the-students-to-meet-the-highly-competitive-industry-requirements/
Credits ·Hari Krishna Maram’s photo: http://www.eventxpress.com/ · Document design- Santosh C. Hulagabali · Technical assistance-Sneha Rathod
Santosh C. Hulagabali, PhD. is Moderator of Open Interview. He heads Library and Information Centre of Khandwala College in Mumbai. He is passionate about anything that is creative, challenging and truly impacts self and others. Email: santosh[@]nkc.ac.in
Nice topic brought into the discussion. Much needed to address the issues in the education sector. Yes, the disruptive technologies are already influencing and affecting the teaching-learning aspects of education system.
I feel there should be a clear road map from policy makers to implement these technological skills and should provide a financial assistance to build better infrastructure, training centres and bring competent trainers from respective industry.
Very informative, gives analytical insights about the current education system in India and bridging the gaps in our curricula and industry requirements. A must read for everyone in education sector!