Innovative Mechanisms and Standards for Assuring Quality in Higher Education

Date 29-Jan-2021 to 29-Jan-2021

Location Virtual

Format National

3^rd National Conference on Innovative Mechanisms and Standards for Assuring Quality in Higher Education Institutions

Learning is for everyone. Or, at least, it should be.

With the pandemic keeping us all within our homes and away from schools and colleges, the need for a new way of learning (and teaching) arose for every learning institution. But as higher education enters the digital realm, there are several pitfalls.

At this year's IAQHEI conference, PRIA Founder-President Dr. Rajesh Tandon noted that moving education online, in itself, sharpens the digital divide in India. How many students and learners even have access to internet-enabled devices, leave alone the courses being taught via them? Identifying these pitfalls constituted only a portion of the conference's agenda. Speakers and attendees alike agreed that concrete steps have to be taken to reduce the digital divide. One important suggestion was collaborating to create common internet hotspots at the community level. Another was sharing data repositories across educational institutions and investing in digital infrastructure for students and faculty.

Very much in keeping with the concept of 'Open Science' (a main focus area for Dr. Tandon in his role as UNESCO Co-Chair for Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education), interventions like these are aimed at diversifying and making accessible resources that every learner needs. And this goes beyond what technology or medium an individual uses. Dr. Tandon also asserted his long-held position that all forms of knowledge need to be recognised, embraced, and promulgated with equal vigour! Even as we reimagine the How of online nearning, there is great value in reimagining the What. The very content that forms our education can and should come from newer (and, dare we say, unorthodox?) sources. And there were further points of discussion in this direction:

Flexible learning

• Flexible learning, wherein the education system provides and values informal, non-formal and formal learning.
• Embracing learning in all its forms, for all purposes, and, most importantly now, for global citizenship education.
• Learn from home- With parents now adopting the role of facilitators, there is room for policy appreciation of intergenerational learning

Promoting Co-Learning And Engaged Scholarship

• The natural focus of action of educational institutions in response to local demands – to contribute to the competitiveness strategy of nations/regions – can lead to a winners-and-losers scenario (zero-sum competitive game), with the possibility of a somewhat negative impact on global issues
• New approaches to learning based on dialogical, co-learning, participatory and problem-oriented methods are probably required to support these new pedagogical achievements.
• Disciplinary studies that fail to make connections or links with real-world and real-time challenges and problems appear unlikely to support useful learning in the future.
• New, critical and reflexive learning systems need to be designed to meet the challenges of the new modernity. Learning by doing is now seen as a vital tool for understanding sustainability, among other emerging concepts.
• Identify the mechanisms that encourage engaged scholarship, and make it possible for academic activity to have social impact, both locally and globally.
• Accreditation for community-engaged teaching and learning
• Socially responsible higher education needs to connect with all providers of education in their contexts. The past division between primary, secondary and tertiary is artificial now, since new competencies are to be learned by all – students, learners, teachers and parents alike.

Making Teaching And Learning Locally Relevant And Inclusive

• Teaching courses contextually, picking instances and examples from the contextual reality of students is key.
• Multi-linguistic strategies need to be developed so that information can be packaged in ways that it can be consumed by different people from diverse contexts.
• Teaching must be inclusive of all kinds of knowledge systems. Indigenous knowledges, local knowledges and traditional practices and cultures must be incorporated in academic pedagogy and must be treated with the same respect as other mainstream or modern knowledges

Additional Tools For Digital Teaching And Learning

• Course material involves real time dialogue, discussions
• Giving assignments which require students to engage with their local communities to co-construct knowledge
• Using translated texts for teaching academic theories and concepts
• Ensuring ethical protocols are followed through constant monitoring; creating links between acquired knowledge and the impact of that knowledge for both students and teachers
• Training teachers for engaged teaching (for virtual teaching)

---

As the conference ended, there was much food for thought. Dr. Tandon had posed several important questions, listed here for future debate and discussion.

How can online education can make students self-directed learners?

If transmission of knowledge has been the main function of educational institutes so far, how will they become co-producers of knowledge?

What can help teachers co-produce knowledge face to face before it happens online?

How do we approach 'learning' and 'unlearning' that is crucial for our education?

Written by Niharika Kaul and Shambhavi Saxena.