India as a country has been seeing a lot of innovation in the Higher Education arena over the last 5 years. In fact there has been a rapid increase in student enrolments for higher education in the area of management, health sciences, hospitality and tourism verses others.
Just like other post graduation courses, MBA too has reached its pinnacle of glory and now it’s under critical observation and review.
Further, it is now clear for the aspirants to seek outcomes which are measured at the end of the course for expecting an employment guarantee. This puts in a lot of pressure on the B Schools and could lead to churn in this segment. Besides part time MBA & executive MBA; online MBA programmes too are being preferred by many due to the flexibility and convenience.
Taking into consideration, there are many new opportunities that are existing and many which are upcoming that would scale at a high altitude for students to pursue. Specialized courses in MBA like specialization in Advertising, Digital Media Marketing, Supply Chain Management, and Technology Management & Hospitality Management are also in great demand. Not only that, amongst existing courses in Hospitality Management, Travel and Tourism, Research and Development are part of Hotel Management Education.
A significant change that we are seeing happening around us is the rapid emergence of skill based courses I areas such as retailing, banking, selling, mobile repairing, embroidery, fashion & jewellery design to name a few. These courses are typically of short duration ranging from three months to 12 months maximum and include a great amount of practical training.
Further, we could have system that the students can acquire learning on a continuous basis and get certified upon completion of certain milestones say a certificate after writing an exam after six months, or a diploma after a year.
A significant change that we are seeing happening around us is the rapid emergence of skill based courses the areas such as retailing, banking, selling, mobile repairing, embroidery, fashion & jewellery design to name a few.These courses are typically of short duration ranging from three months to 12 months maximum and include a great amount of practical training. They are skill based and the theory content is optimum; exams are often based on practical and offline / online quizzes. Many of them include a job guarantee and this makes these courses very attractive to the applicants. Nonetheless caution needs to be exercised as many of these do not yet qualify as programmes with academic recognition as per our current education system.
Further, we could have system that the students can acquire learning on a continuous basis and get certified upon completion of certain milestones say a certificate after writing an exam after six months, a diploma after a year and a degree after two years with the caveat that they should complete the degree with four years of starting. This will allow a good blend of theory and practice and also minimize dropouts during the education process. This has also led to establishment of new deemed private universities, several colleges and institutes across metros spread across Tier II and Tier III cities.However, the government through the NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation) has instituted a system to recognize some of these skill based programmes to ensure academic rigor & standardization. More efforts are on in this direction and once this is institutionalized will bring about a sea change in the employment patterns in the country. Another innovation that is the need of the hour is to allow flexibility in completion of a course to allow genuine breaks and also allow the student to pace his education based on his comfort.
As the world is rapidly changing due to technology, many people worry that technology will replace human intelligence. It is also a matter of concern for the professors that there will be no students to teach anymore as technology might take over teaching the students in the near future. However, technology can be a boon and facilitate the learning process as under:
- Anytime learning & at any place.
- Personalised learning at one’s own pace & speed
- Flexible paths & more choice of subjects
- Blended learning, flipped classrooms and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for learning.
- Project based & experiential learning
- Increasing importance of Data interpretation & Data Analytics
- With increased use of online quizzes, group projects and group discussions, examination patterns are likely to change completely
- There will be increase in the level of student ownership during the learning process and the student would take more responsibility. Also, teachers will help in clarifying and problem solving.
- Classrooms would move towards being paperless & more computer based
- Mentoring will become more important. Though the students will incorporate so much independence in to their learning process, mentoring will become fundamental to student success.