Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Evolution of Education in 2022

The NEP 2020 policy has been a pathbreaking step to ensure an advanced and imaginative teaching pedagogy for students across the nation. It has transformed the redundant Indian educational system, in which the Covid-19 pandemic played an influential role to accelerate it further. The use of technology in the teaching-learning process, especially during the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for the dawn of the ‘digital era’ in the education sector. The new policy is aimed to bridge the gap between skill, academics, and industry know-how. India is a land of entrepreneurship where due recognition to vocational training & skill development needs to be unleashed.

With the advancement of globalization, the ‘new-age’ careers emerge as economic cogwheels for GDP, Employment, and Nation building The ‘new-normal’ needs a new vision, new roadmap, and new trends in the education landscape. The era of globalization witnesse sea-through changes in modern careers choices & educational pedagogies.

As human-technology relation grows further, new educational developments continue to evolve as follows:

Soft skill centricity-

Soft skills are picking up the steam amongst the learner and teacher due to its application in real-world pursuits. Direct outcome of these skills may not be measurable, but they are concealed beneath academic accomplishments. These skills shape students’ identity, primarily as an individual and recognized professional.

The human centric skills are also skimming up with rise of artificial intelligence in modern workplace. Often underrated, building a human -centric design thinking is crucial for personalized and professional learning. Assessing soft skill in digitally nimble ecosystem will be imperative for the balanced approach in critically diverse situation. Soft skills like critical thinking, complex problem solving, resilience, agility, creativity, emotional intelligence will see rising prominence in age of automation where technology cannot replace such skills.

The era of Ed-tech-

The EdTech sector has been growing considerably even since the Covid-19 struck the globe. The platform caters to a wide range of learners s right from school students to continuous learners looking to reskill and upskill themselves. Features like personalized and flexible learning have enabled to create individual learning methodologies to cater to multilateral requirements. As trend of hybrid learning is irreversible, ED tech platforms are new future of education landscape.

Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary learning-

Blended learning has surfaced as one of the ‘new-age’ learning methodologies around the world. At a higher educational level, interdisciplinary learning is even more crucial, as it requires the knowledge bank of various fields and streams to excel in today’s futuristic career paths. Interdisciplinary knowledge and application of different disciplines will lead to greater creativity among human capital.

Multiple entry- exit and credit-based choice learning forms an integral part of new learning syllabi. Interdisciplinary and blended learning can revolutionize the education system globally by fostering freedom of choice to learners so that they no longer have to leave behind one for the other. This learning methodologies will enrich your understanding of the world by deepening your knowledge base and broadening your perspective in era of globalization.

Critical and design thinking-

Design thinking along with critical thinking strengthens the innovation to augment consumer-centric solutions. This is a key driver for creating opportunities with its universal application across various industries and sectors. If used effectively, critical thinking can help us acquire key insights about the user experience and strengthen our design competency. A fine blend between critical and design thinking will nudge us to derive at human centric approach. New learning should encourage way of thinking to develop better thinking capabilities and accentuate complex problem-solving skill set.

The roadmap of Indian education sector in the coming year 2022, will witness a huge transformation with better and thoughtful approaches towards raising a generation of learners inclined towards creating a better world. The new pedagogies will include

innovative tools, techniques and skill-sets to better prepare our learners to blend into the real world of working professionals. In order to do so, a constant process of learning and questioning is imperative to improve the world.

(The author is Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani, Provost, HSNC University, Mumbai)