INNOVATIVE, ENGAGING, AND EFFICIENT WAYS TO | Learn, Skill, and Reskill https://edsanta.com INNOVATIVE, ENGAGING, AND EFFICIENT WAYS TO | Learn, Skill, and Reskill Fri, 11 Mar 2022 05:49:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 https://edsanta.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cropped-edsanta-colored-favicon-low-32x32.png INNOVATIVE, ENGAGING, AND EFFICIENT WAYS TO | Learn, Skill, and Reskill https://edsanta.com 32 32 How to become a programmer through self learning https://edsanta.com/how-to-become-a-programmer-through-self-learning/ Mon, 07 Mar 2022 15:41:45 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=6243
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How to become a programmer through self learning?

Computer programming or coding is the process of writing numerous lines of executable code. The essential study could be done from an institute, or with the help of computer science books or online tutorials.

 

There is an endless demand for programmers, but the number of capable individuals available is too few. This is a region of high growth for those people who have the interest to learn how to program.

 

There are numerous resources available for learning how to code. The availability of computer science books, classes, and even online courses add to the ease of acquiring the skill. Any method of study can be adapted based on individual interests.

Learning the basics 

Begin your journey into programming by studying the basics of computer science. Data Structures, Sort, Search, etc. are to be mastered before attempting actual programming.

 

Understanding how code works is the most critical factor while programming. Once you have an exact knowledge of the basics, coding will be a natural process.

 

A computer science degree is usually a preference for a programming career. However, it is not a necessity, since several online resources are available for use.

Languages and Platforms

Familiarize yourself with a programming language that interests you. Select a suitable platform according to your interest, and work hard on mastering it.

 

The platform of choice can be web development, software development, or even mobile device development. Whichever program you choose, utilize all the available time to master it.

 

Experiment with various languages and platforms to find one suitable for your style. Once you make a decision, demote the other fields to hobbies, and focus on the platform of your choice. 

Set a coding standard 

Never attempt a coding exercise without proper preparation beforehand. Even if you continue to make mistakes, never lose hope, and keep trying to learn. 

 

Never copy programs from the internet and claim them as yours. Learning how to program is no easy task, and it requires constant practice to acquire a finesse for the method. 

Stay Focused 

If you are opting for self-study in coding, you must always set weekly milestones for yourself. This may include reading a chapter in a guide book or completing an online course.

 

The challenges that you set for yourself must be realistic and attainable. Try to enroll in and complete as many exercises as you can if you opt to learn code online. 

 

Make sure you engage yourself for a fixed hour every day. Treat yourself every time you achieve a milestone!

You can also log in to elitelearning.io This simplifies the process for you. 

]]> Learning to be happy: The MOOC way https://edsanta.com/learning-to-be-happy-the-mooc-way/ Mon, 07 Mar 2022 08:53:49 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=6141
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Learning to be happy: The MOOC way

Learning is not all about success in your career. While that is important, it is equally important to have a fulfilling life. And, what is most important for that? You guessed it – happiness. Do you want to be happy? Of course, you do! Who doesn’t? And in these times when everything (well, almost!) is available online, happiness is too. To be more specific, you can learn to be happy by using resources found online. Let us tell you about a few courses that can bring loads of sunshine into your life.

The Science of Well-Being: Yale University

This course makes you work through a series of challenges that will put you on a path of well-being. The skills you will gain from this course are mostly intangible. You will soon count among your abilities, gratitude, mindfulness, and an ability to savor experiences and even things. Not all results from this course are intangible. The course curriculum aims to ensure that you eventually incorporate a specific wellness activity into your routine.

The Science of Happiness: Berkeley, University of California

This course is among the first MOOCs that offered to teach students positive psychology. The curriculum is structured in such a way that you will effortlessly imbibe science-based principles and practices which will help you raise the happiness quotient in your life. The course has been created by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. The course is interesting as it uses a lot of cross-disciplinary research spanning fields such as psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and others.

 Life of Happiness and Fulfillment: Indian School of Business

This course is taught by Prof. Rajagopal Raghunathan ((aka “Dr. Happy-smarts”), a professor of Marketing at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, and a visiting professor at the Indian School of Business. This course takes you through seven well-structured steps to reach your goal of happiness.

The course is based on the award-winning class taught by Prof Raghunathan at the Indian School of Business and the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Content for the course is drawn from various fields such as psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory.

The Year of Happy: The Positive Psychlopedia

This is a free email course that walks its participants through one major theme of happiness every month. Weekly emails with theme-based videos, readings, discussions, among other things are sent to participants. Gratitude, optimism, mindfulness, kindness, relationships, flow, goals, work, savoring, resilience, body, meaning, and spirituality will soon cease to be just words. All these concepts will become a part of your personality if you do all that the course instructors tell you to. 1-2 hours per week should do the trick.

So you now know that you can learn how to increase your happiness and also build habits that will make you more productive than you are currently.

And the certification for these skills will come to you from a source that will be brutally honest (if you let it be!) – yourself. And what’s more, this ‘certification’ can be revisited at any time by just looking within yourself! And if you find yourself wanting, you know what to do and where to get support.

Some of these courses do offer actual certification too! Check these and more such courses out at elitelearing.io

]]> The Bridge to Nowhere https://edsanta.com/the-bridge-to-nowhere/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 09:09:40 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5220

The Bridge to Nowhere

Imagine building a bridge meant to last many generations and carry millions of people and tons of traffic. The new Choluteca Bridge or the Bridge of the Rising Sun, in South America’s Honduras region was built with this kind of vision – to last forever (or at least an exceptionally long time). In 1996, Japanese engineers were contracted to build the bridge so that it could withstand the storms and hurricanes that were common to the region. The bridge was opened to the public in 1998. Hurricane Mitch swept over the region in October of the same year, putting the bridge’s strength to test. Roads leading to the bridge and leaving the bridge disappeared in the wake of the mighty hurricane. Even the river Choluteca, over which the bridge was built, changed its direction! The bridge, however, remained standing – a testament to its engineering brilliance. But, for what? What use is a bridge that leads to nowhere?

A lot of businesses today are looking at their own versions of the new Choluteca Bridge. The impact of COVID19 has once again reminded us of the adage, “change is the only constant”. Products and services that were considered to be steady and stable businesses were made redundant in one fell swoop. However, I found this statement in McKinsey and Company’s recent executive brief very heartening.

“When history books one day recount the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, it may well be a tale of human ingenuity and adaptiveness.”

Resilience is the need of the hour. Those of us who are ready to learn and adapt will be able to grab the opportunities that this adversity has thrown up. CEOs around the world have acknowledged that upskilling and reskilling is the only way to futureproof the workforce. But, how do you bring about effective and relevant training? How do you gently align your entire workforce’s learning agenda with the organization’s future vision and needs? At the same time, how do you reassure individual employees that the organization is equally concerned about their personal aspirations? It is a conundrum, isn’t it? Especially today – when most of your workforce is working remotely.

Well, we don’t have all the answers, but we’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Our focus has been on developing a learning platform that is not just a repository of information but it also doubles as a personal skilling advisor that walks the talk every step of the way. Elite, our learning platform for the workplace, is the culmination of our efforts to meet this goal.

Elite employees define their career goals based on their current role, skills, and aspirations. The personal skilling advisor then maps the journey to the goal via a set of required skills. The platform not only provides the necessary learning content to acquire the skill but also helps validate your employee’s knowledge of said skill.

The next step is to ensure that employees are kept engaged. Now, there are two ways to do this – the stick—where the HR breathes down their necks like a very impatient parent, or the carrot. We prefer the carrot approach.

Elite has been built as a social platform where your employees can share information and appreciate others. Your employees can connect with mentors in their chosen field and learn by interaction. The achiever’s gallery throws the spotlight on each week’s top learners. This brings in the element of gamification and competition. Our goal is to make learning a habit that the workforce takes to without any additional intervention from the organization.

The ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ was eventually reconnected to the highway in 2003. Let us too adapt and embrace the opportunities presented by our new environment.

]]> Unlock the Power of Your Employees https://edsanta.com/unlock-the-power-of-your-employees/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:46:25 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5209
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Unlock the Power of Your Employees

Studies and surveys indicate that most workplaces have NOT tapped into the full power of their workforce’s potential. 

A recent Gallup survey of organizations around the world places employee engagement at a meagre 15%. 

Imagine what we could accomplish if we could tap into the 85% that’s hibernating.

So, why does employee engagement matter?

In simple terms employee engagement is one of the main pillars of an organization’s success.

Here are some numbers that tell a clear story.

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So does this mean that employee engagement is good to have but not having it causes no real harm? 

On the contrary, low employee engagement can cost the organization hard cash.

A study on workplace engagement in the US revealed that low employee engagement costs USD 450-500 billion each year.

Ignoring these numbers is like trying to build your business on quick sand.

What is employee engagement?

It’s an abstract concept that could mean different things to different people. Here’s a look at what some experts and leading research companies think employee engagement is.

According to Aon Hewitt it is “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.”

Gallup defines engaged employees as, “those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace”

According to Quantum Workplace, employee engagement is “the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward their places of work”.

All of these definitions have one thing in common. It’s all about the employees’ emotional response and commitment to their workplace.

What triggers higher employee engagement?

There are many factors that contribute to employee engagement and I will not try to simplify its complexity by stating that I have all the answers. 

I will however not pass up the opportunity to draw your attention to a certain human behavior that was highlighted during the recent COVID crisis. Catastrophes, after all , magnify and illuminate human behaviour like nothing else.

The recent COVID 19 crisis underscored the enormous untapped human potential available when people understand the end goal that their job is accomplishing. We’ve seen some consumer product companies and textile firms triple their output when they pivoted to produce sanitizers and masks.

Employees need to feel that their future and well being is intricately connected to the organization. The relationship between staff and management should  have a personal feel , ideally that of a mentor and mentee.

Josh Bersin’s depiction of the 21st century management style says it all.

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The organisation should  be perceived as being invested in the individual’s interests and personal goals.

Personalized learning programs that are aligned to the employee’s long term career goals reflect this perception. . 

Backed by this belief  we spent our energies to perfect Elite’s career path engine. With Elite  each employee can be put on a personalized learning path  aligned to their career goal.  The easy-to-navigate path is broken down into skills that can be acquired through thousands of learning resources available to them at any time through their personal login. 

Moreover,  employees’ learning can also be aligned to the organization’s long term goal. This gives the employee the gratification of working towards a greater goal.

When an organisation invests in the personal growth of an employee, it definitely pays off.

Image source: https://joshbersin.com/

]]> Is your organization resilient?​ https://edsanta.com/is-your-organization-resilient/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:25:51 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5198
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Is your organization resilient?

As the dust settles and organizations go back to work, the question many a CEO is asking is:

Are we resilient enough to prosper in the shadow of the social and economic impact of COVID-19?

Resilience is a concept that represents an organization’s capacity to adapt and thrive in a new harsh environment.

Adaptability is closely linked to the ability of the workforce to learn and pivot to a rapidly changing environment.

That is why a recent Deloitte article “returning to work in the future of work” remarked, “COVID-19 reinforced that it is more important to understand what workers are capable of doing than understanding what they have done before.”

“Now is not the time to pull back on workforce development efforts, but instead to double down on commitments to building a resilient workforce that can adapt in the face of constant change.”

How do you build resilience?

Resilience is not just built ONLY on the foundations of innovation and entrepreneurship but also on less quantifiable capabilities such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and collaboration.

Organisations, however, normally do not focus on developing these skills in their professionals, as it’s believed that these are attributes acquired during childhood or schooling. But research suggests just the opposite. For instance, psychologist Angela Duckworth, known for her research on “grit” (a combination of perseverance and passion), believes that this quality can be cultivated regardless of innate talent or intelligence. An MIT study recently tested this theory, and found that a 12-month workforce training program focused on improving communication, problem-solving and decision-making, time and stress management, financial literacy, legal literacy and social entitlements, and execution excellence significantly impacted productivity. The program delivered a 250% return on investment (ROI) within eight months of completion, with much of the gain being attributed to a jump in productivity.

Whilst this study is very encouraging, it’s often difficult to get  employees to sign up for non-technical courses that do not have an immediate impact on their career. This concern is much more relevant in the current times when remote work is the norm.  This is why we have a  special focus on soft skills like critical thinking and emotional intelligence when designing Elite’s individual learning path. Elite gives you the flexibility to design learning programs that focus on technical skills as well as soft skills. As  softs skills are seamlessly woven into  individuals’ career maps, they are  more likely to include them into the efforts taken to reach their career goal. 

Leaders who want to forge ahead and thrive in the new norm must take positive steps towards encouraging meaningful learning in their workforce.

]]> Is your training program effective? https://edsanta.com/is-your-training-program-effective/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 07:30:38 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5176
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Is your training program effective?

We are at the epicentre of transformations both at a personal and organizational level. Organizations are focused on reinventing themselves to adapt and flourish in the new norm. Studies by industry experts like Deloitte, Mercer and Aon Hewitt have  thrown the spotlight on learning and skilling as the main drivers for this transformation.

Deloitte’s recent study states, “​A system that invests not just in workers’ near-term skill needs but also in workers’ long-term resilience can help build long-term organizational resilience in a world where the only constant is change.”

According to a recent Mercer Study, “Most companies (85%) expect technological transformation to continue as a primary business disruptor.”

A recent McKinsey article says, “Amid crisis disruption or when preparing for the next normal, quickly delivering practical flexible learning can help shape a business’ recovery profile”.

So, in a nutshell, industry leaders opine that  employee development is crucial to building a resilient organization poised for growth despite changes.  What is needed is the right medium to bring about this transformation.

What are the hurdles to a successful L&D program?

Deloitte’s Modern Learner of the pre-COVID era depicts a harried and hassled individual who’s struggling under a deluge of information with not enough time to absorb anything of value. 

Here’s a depiction of  the classic overwhelmed, overworked 21st century learner.

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The COVID-19 crisis has now added health and livelihood concerns to this mix.

How do you structure an L&D program that can rise above this cacophony and be heard?

You’ll have your employees on board and raring to go once you’ve addressed this very simple question. It’s a question that most individuals are likely to ask when presented with a skilling and training program.

“I get that this program is for the company’s overall success, but what’s in it for me?

Elite’s career path recommendation engine is your answer to this question. Each individual’s learning path is set to achieve his personalized career goal. Elite presents the learner with multiple career paths based on his current skill set and interests. Once the learner fixes on a career path, the journey is broken down into biteable portions or skills. The learner is not overwhelmed with information. The individual is encouraged to complete the journey one skill at a time. Learning is made more personal as the individual can choose to learn what he wants to, when he wants to. He can even choose from thousands of learning resources – podcasts, webinars, articles, courses and videos.

Elite has been built on the philosophy that humans respond better when they are presented with an achievable and tangible goal.

]]> Bridging the Skills Gap https://edsanta.com/bridging-the-skills-gap/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 07:15:13 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5168
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Bridging the Skills Gap

Revamping employability with a futuristic perspective is the key.

“Employability depends less on what you already know and more on how well you can learn, apply and adapt.”

  • Mara Swan, Executive Vice President, Manpower Group

In this world of constant change, organizational durability is highly dependent on the workers’ short-term and long-term resilience. Hence, it is crucial for organizations to equip their workers with skills such as  creativity, leadership, and critical thinking, in addition to upgrading their technical skills. 

Is ‘reskilling’ the answer? Disruptive forces like advances in AI, cognitive computing, and automation are slowly starting to rule the business and skills environment. Reskilling is not sufficient; the need of the hour is worker reinvention. Workers who can renew existing skills and develop new skills are the ones who will triumphantly ride the wave of changes at their workplaces. Likewise, organizations that mould their employees into a resilient workforce  become sought-after employers. 

Identifying the readiness gap is a big step in workforce development. Very few organizations take the steps needed to transform their workforce. According to a recent Deloitte article, 74% of organizations believe that workforce reskilling is important for achieving success in the next 12-18 months, but only 10% of them are ready to act on this information. This issue majorly arises due to a lack of insights. Over 50% of organizations stated that they were not sure whether their workforce was ready to meet their new demands, and 38% stated that their greatest barrier was identifying the needs and priorities of their workforce for development. But even if organisations have adequate insights, the investment needed in skilling becomes a huge barrier.

Further, organizations are facing pressure from the expectations of their own workforces. The 2020 Global Human Capital Trends survey by Deloitte showed that 73% of workers identified organizations as the primary social entity responsible for updating their skills and capabilities (the respondents were allowed to select up to two options). Out of the other respondents, 54% considered it their own individual responsibility, 19% felt it is the responsibility of educational institutions, 10% felt that governments should own the task and another 8% laid responsibility at the door of professional associations and unions.

According to the 2020 Global Human Capital Trends survey by Deloitte, 53% of organizations stated that nearly half of their workforce or entire workforce are required to evolve their skills and capabilities over the next three years. Navigating successfully through this enormous changing landscape efficiently is not an easy feat. The key winning strategy that emerges is to align organizations’ goals to individual interests and goals through on-the-job training.

This is exactly where our smart recommendation engine, Elite, comes in. It lends a helping hand with a major saving of time and efforts required to search for appropriate skill training programs. The platform provides a personalised list of the most relevant courses that will significantly help empower individuals, thereby contributing to organizations’ overall goals. Elite provides a sustainable path for being resilient. No one knows what the future holds. But, that is no reason to stop planning!

]]> Elite – The Beginning https://edsanta.com/elite-the-beginning/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 06:49:16 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5158
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Elite - The Beginning

Most great inventions have been the result of someone asking questions.

The questions could be intended or unintended, like what happened with Alexander Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin. If Fleming had just thrown away the spoiled petri dish without asking the question of why the staphylococcus colonies did not grow near the mold that had contaminated the petri dish, we would not have antibiotics to treat our myriad illnesses. The key is to ask relevant questions and strive to find answers.

The Edsanta team’s endeavour to develop Elite has been a journey riddled with questions and answers. In Rohan Krishna’s own words, “Every time we tried to find a solution to a learner’s problem, we discovered something new. Our primary focus has always been the learner and all of our products have been just a means to enhance  learner experience”

We started out with a simple question that was plaguing us,

“We have so many tools that allow us to compare and buy flight tickets and groceries online. Why not have something similar that will let learners find courses and learn easily?” 

This led to Get Me A Course – the world’s largest course aggregator

But we were not satisfied. An independent survey of 10,000 youngsters working in various fields revealed that most of them did not know where they wanted to be in 5 years. When 5000 college students were asked the same question, most of them came back with very definitive answers!

This strange divide made us ask another set of questions.

What happened to these youngsters from the time they were in college to when they got into jobs? 

Why did they lose focus?

How do we motivate them and get them back on the track of learning and fulfilling their goals?

We realised that humans learn better when they  are focused on a goal –  an achievable goal.

Our AI-driven career map engine was conceptualized as a result of this.

The usage analysis of the platform revealed that users spend quite a bit of time on the career map. We now wanted to develop a method that would tie the members’ learning to their interests and goals.

This led to another question.

Does the average learner have the time to spend on a 15-20 day course? 

We realised that smaller nuggets of information in the form of videos and podcasts would help learners who did not have the time to spend on structured courses.

We also realised that a person’s capability should be measured on their knowledge and not on certificates. This resulted in our reimagining  a learning model where the learner could gain a skill through unconventional learning resources like videos and podcasts too. The skill could also be validated through peer reviews or our own internal review mechanisms.

Thus Elite was born out of this continuous striving for motivation for learners to reach their full potential.

This journey of discovery is not over, we are in fact at the very beginning.

Like Kurt Vonnegut said,“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

]]> Bridging the digital divide https://edsanta.com/bridging-the-digital-divide/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 06:30:50 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5148

Bridging the digital divide

The Indian subcontinent has never had a dearth of resources – be it of the natural kind or the kind that speaks and smiles. Yes, human resources! Around 14 lakh students graduate every year from our universities. Of this, approximately 1.5 lakh students graduate with a degree in an engineering domain. That’s a veritable crowd of engineers, right? That’s why we can relate to the concept and laugh when a stand-up comedian says, “I am from Chennai, so I am an engineer. An engineer who has never worked as one.” Sometimes, it feels like every second person you meet in one of our metro cities is an engineer. This should be enough for us to take the world by storm, right? However the sad fact is that only 20% of these engineering graduates get employed in their core domain. The lack of up-to-date skills is the elephant in the room. It’s been an endless game of catch up between our school and university curriculums and the skill requirements of the workplace. And our curriculums have always been a step behind in the game.

The Indian Govt has been trying to do its best to narrow this margin with its Outcome Based Education (OBE) policy. However, the question is will this be enough? Will OBE just become another elephant in the room? This is a question that only time, and the youth in India can answer.

The biggest problem our youth face is the accessibility to learning resources. Digitization has made the pace of change so fast that something that was new last year is outdated today. How do our schools and universities then keep up with this ever-changing goal post? The answer lies in the problem itself. We need to embrace the very phenomenon that has put us in trouble. We need to harness the freedom and accessibility that digitization allows.

Online learning has been around for some time now. The pandemic gave it a shot in the arm. The social distancing norms we had to live with the past year has broken down any reservations we might have had about online learning and collaboration. So we need to  take this as a blessing in disguise and use this to our advantage. Students should not be limited to the curriculum that has been drawn up anymore. They should be encouraged to find mentors online and communicate with them. University curriculums should actually encourage students to access knowledge from other online sources. They should be graded on the basis of the amount of extracurricular information they garner. Hopefully this broader view of accessing knowledge is something that they will continue with in their future too. Continuous learning after all is the only way forward now.

Naysayers might say that this is a pipe dream. Not something that can be implemented in a country that struggles to provide basic infrastructure to its schools and colleges. But nothing is impossible. Take a look around. If you are on a bus or train, you’ll see that at least half of the passengers are engrossed in their smartphones. This is no surprise considering that the number of smartphone users in India is estimated to reach 760 million in 2021. That is 1 out 10 people in India! If we encourage our youth to use their smartphones to connect with the tons of free learning resources that are easily accessible, half the battle would be won. Did you know that there are free lectures and courses available from Ivy league institutes like MIT? There are also tons of videos and podcasts that are freely available on any subject under the sun. These are a godsend  for those who don’t have the time or patience to go through a course or lecture. It’s just a matter of making this a universally acceptable way of acquiring knowledge. If given the right encouragement, the youth in this country already have the means to find and acquire the skills to make them employable. That 20% of employable engineers could easily become 100%. It’s just a case of shifting our mindset and finding a way to meet our future head-on!

The Indian Govt has been trying to do its best to narrow this margin with its Outcome Based Education (OBE) policy. However, the question is will this be enough? Will OBE just become another elephant in the room? This is a question that only time, and the youth in India can answer.

The biggest problem our youth face is the accessibility to learning resources. Digitization has made the pace of change so fast that something that was new last year is outdated today. How do our schools and universities then keep up with this ever-changing goal post? The answer lies in the problem itself. We need to embrace the very phenomenon that has put us in trouble. We need to harness the freedom and accessibility that digitization allows.

Resources

https://www.statista.com/statistics/467163/forecast-of-smartphone-users-in-india/

https://zeenews.india.com/economy/union-budget-2021-new-nep-hailed-by-education-sector-2339275.html

]]> Aatmanirbhar Bharat, Aatmanirbhar Vidya https://edsanta.com/aatmanirbhar-bharat-aatmanirbhar-vidya/ Wed, 02 Mar 2022 06:14:49 +0000 http://ec2-3-14-158-49.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/?p=5139

Aatmanirbhar Bharat
Aatmanirbhar Vidya

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No rigid separation in academic, extracurricular and vocational streams. New curricula for a 15-year school tenure. Teaching in the mother tongue up to grade 5.  Emphasis on conceptual understanding. These are not some ‘hot education’ concepts from Finland. This is the New Education Policy, 2020 right here in India.

The policy is revolutionary in vision and scope and is being introduced not a second too late. The proof of the pudding, will however, be in the eating. The success of this lies in the outcomes: Will NEP 2020 equip our biggest asset – the youth of our population –  with employable skills for the 21st century? Will it be able to make an impact on children hungering for learning in the remote hinterlands? What about children of migrant populations? As we saw last year during the lockdown, millions of migrants move around the country in search of a living.Their children, unfortunately, are forced to drop out of the schooling system sooner rather than later.  Will NEP 2020 help leapfrog a relatively agrarian, mostly rural country firmly into the post-knowledge era of the mid 21st century?

These are important questions for which there are no ready answers. Educationists, entrepreneurs, planners and leaders across the country are pondering these very questions as I write. As an entrepreneur in the edtech space myself, I posit that NEP 2020, while daring and ambitious in its agenda, needs to go further in its scope and implementation to make the impact our country needs.

Consider these numbers: by 2030, 4 billion people living on the planet will be on the internet. This is an incredible melding of minds, never before seen in the march of humanity.  Imagine the opportunities for collaboration, innovation and creation when 4 billion minds talk to each other. The possibilities of what we can do are endless.

And yet, to be able to truly aim to be part of this global collective, to be participating members making meaningful contributions, Indian children need to be equipped with a host of 21st century skills – communication, collaboration and critical thinking. These skills need to be the focus of NEP 2020 implementers. Countries across the globe are signing on to a common understanding of 21st century skills, work habits and abilities that their populations need to equip themselves with. NEP 2020 must address this and sign on as well.

Our honourable Prime Minister referred to precisely this during the two-day conclave on School Education in the 21st Century in September 2020. “We have to advance our students with 21st-century skills. These 21st Century skills will be: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Curiosity, Communication,” he said.

What about college goers, job seekers and professionals seeking to upskill themselves? It is a sad testament to our current system that it is producing lakhs of engineers who can’t communicate and science graduates who can’t problem solve. There is a yawning gap between academia and industry – many enterprises attempt to bridge this by putting new joinees through elaborate training programs but those that fall through the cracks stare at bleak futures replete with dead-end jobs and un(der)employment.

The push for hybrid vocational training in NEP 2020 is a highly welcome step in this regard. Let us make this training truly hybrid by using the digital infrastructure to train the youth remotely – whether they login from mobile phones or other devices, whether they are urban or rural, they must have the same opportunities to skill and reskill themselves as per market demand.

E-learning need not be a one-way street of long lists of prescriptive videos – these just result in cognitive overload, very poor engagement and dismal outcomes. We are only now knocking on the doors of true, technology-driven learning – gamified courses, AR/VR driven simulations, collaborative and competitive interactive settings and more. India is a technology powerhouse delivering world-class software services to the West. It’s time to turn that focus inwards and build world-class edtech for our children and youth.

My venture, Elite, aims to equip professionals with just-in-time knowledge curated from the vast ocean of content that’s already out there. Elite users learn on the job, keeping their long term job and role ambitions in mind. We are moving the platform to provide concept-based education for vocational skills as well.

Elite is our contribution to supporting NEP 2020. As India looks to become self-reliant in all spheres, innovative, holistic, concept-driven, digital education can become one of the hallmarks of our unique system of 21st century learning.

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