HIGHER EDUCATION NEEDS A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH
Colleges must be flexible and wider in its scope; wide enough to include open-ended choices rather than close-ended options
World over higher education is at the crossroads. The challenges it faces now are more than anything it has faced in history. The main reason for this is because of two significant disruptions that took place simultaneously or became necessary — one because of the other!
The sudden disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the world in one of the worst existential crisis that the human race has encountered till date. It transcended regions and continents across the globe.
However, the second disruption that followed was the only available solution to keep global communication channels open and effective. Here, the internet and the virtual world played a crucial role. It was nothing short of a miracle that the world was technically equipped with an information communication technology (ITC) network in place, for continuing conversations and information dissemination during the period of global calamity. Such a pandemic, a few decades ago, could have proven to be the proverbial ‘qayamat’ (doomsday) for humanity.
Saving grace
Education, in its present form, could have been the biggest causality of the pandemic. The situation presented one of the biggest challenges for educational institutions to keep the process of knowledge dissemination going for billions of students all around the world.
Here information communication technology not only came to its rescue but also became the new normal. However, a digital divide deprived led to suffered too. Classes went online and classrooms buzz and banter became a reminiscent of the past. But, now there is an urgent need to bring it back!
These disruptions are the major reasons for the challenges faced by higher education today not only in the UAE but globally. It also raised a few fundamental questions on the way ahead. Firstly, the crucial question was, what kind of education would be relevant in the postpandemic world? The second important question was about how education needs to be. Though answers to these fundamental questions aren’t easy, certain models theoretically and practically may gain universality sooner or later.
Need for change
Higher education needs to be flexible and wider in its scope; wide enough to include open-ended choices rather than close-ended options. Higher education today and for a few decades now is being classified as technical, medical, management, arts and humanities as streams promising career options, notwithstanding the choices, likes, inclinations and or aptitude of the aspirants.
Post high-school, there are socioeconomic pressures on the young men and women to choose a trending option, presumed to be a good career preference offered by a rated-reputed institution and then go through the grind.
The advocates will cite sufficient data to prove its efficacy, in the same breath now they have started talking about vanishing of many a jobs that existed today and newer ones coming up in the very near future and warning about its perils.
No one however knows for sure how to prepare for that future! The solutions are not too far and unimaginable to find — to prepare a young person to be futureproof, training in emotional intelligence, communication and interpersonal skills, social responsibility and most importantly technical and analytical abilities to judge and adapt to situations and eventualities, has to be provided and honed over a relaxed and pressure less environment by mentors rather than trainers.
A fresh approach
An example for such an educational environment will be an institution that is closer home to let the youngsters enjoy family and friend support system, that is flexible enough to go year-on-year with choices of preferred area of study instead of tying them up for three to four years in a particular stream or structure; that offers variety of futuristic programs or courses that are relevant and updated and above all that gives a free spirited freedom for expression and experiment with peers, mentors and the society at large, to explore and experience the world first hand.
And there exist such institutions, just look intensely around you, compare, contrast, gather information, analyse, evaluate and then decide one step at a time.
Getting future-ready
The future is here to stay and the mechanism to be successful in the future is to prepare, and prepare well. Knowledge is no more a preserve of the teacher, its available at the click of a button but to use knowledge for skills, competencies and wisdom, there is this need of a holistic approach provided by those who understand it.