The title for this article (loosely translated as 'where goes thou') is inspired by the eponymous 1950s Hollywood magnum opus (starring Peter Ustinov as Nero) which enscapulates the present state of Higher Education and the crossroads it finds itself in.
Some background may be in order to set the context.
Having successfully directed the placement program for one of India's leading private universities, as the Head of Corporate Relations, one has witnessed the changing recruitment landscape over the past five years at close quarters. Long gone are the days when IT companies used to make offers to any engineering graduate based on just an aptitude test and an interview. Given the technology disruptions and the ever accelerating pace of change, all organisations-large or small, start-up or mature, have to be ahead of the curve if they are to survive in the next decade! And for that, Universities and institutions of higher learning need to be in synch with industry trends and requirements. Offering 'one size fit all' programs with decades old syllabi is a sure prescription for oblivion.
Some epiphanic moments will illustrate this better; like, when the Head of an Automotive company said he was not looking to recruit Mechanical or Automobile engineering graduates but only wanted students from Mechatronics stream! Ditto, for an Auto-Component major. Or, to take the case of the founder of a leading unicorn seeking not just 'data scientists' but students who have some grounding in the arts and philosophy!
Whats happening?? Simply put, the whole recruitment paradigm is undergoing a transformation as a result of tectonic technological disruptions fuelled by environmental (climate) change and the resulting social upheaval. Push towards clean energy (including renewable energy, electric vehicles), increasing use of drones with sensor driven irrigation, robotised shop floors requiring minimal human intervention, AI/ML becoming increasingly ubiquitous impacting millions of lives, medical electronics, the increasing overlap of banking and finance with attendant challenges of cyber-security are but some examples. Technology is both the cause and the antidote and hence imaginative programs combining multiple disciplines are required to prepare the next generation of students to effectively meet these challenges and deliver innovative and effective solutions.
The ongoing pandemic has only served to expose the faultiness and the attendant opportunities and served to accelerate the afore mentioned trends.
Reading the leaves at the bottom of the tea cup, one can discern the following shifts playing out in the sphere of higher education:
It is clear from the above that only those institutions which 'connect the dots' and take bold decisions to re-imagine/reboot the whole system right from admissions, curriculum design, learning pedagogy, industry immersion, application orientation with a clear view of expected outcomes will lead the way to the future. Indeed the change need to start at the school level which is a separate topic by itself to be covered later.
