How often do you feel that what is taught in the school or college has no importance in the future professional life?
Tailoring pedagogy to not only train students to tackle the complexities of the modern world but also to pull out people from poverty is the need of the hour. This tends to happen for three reasons.
Firstly, there is a huge gap between what is taught in academics and what the industry demands. In the race to make products more competitive the industry is constantly innovating and making a technological breakthrough. The academia has not been able to cope with the industry expectation as it cannot adopt the market technology so quickly. Secondly, colleges have become theoretical institutions who focus solely on the theoretical aspects of concepts and not its application. This makes the student lose interest in the topic. Consequently, the learning curve is diminished and the student ends up just mugging the concept.
Example of this in our industry is when we were taught IC Engines, we only learned how does the engine work. We never opened the engine in the entire course of engineering. That is why we neither did not know how to open an engine nor what are the tools to open it.
However, if we would have opened the engine we would have learned about its practical difficulties and also learned how to handle the tools to open the engine. This process increases the relevance of learning and generates curiosity.
Lastly, the gestation period for education is very high. This is hurting those in the formal education process as by the time they come out of educational institutes the technology has changed making it harder to cope with the deliverables.
Moreover, the marginalized who really need education cannot afford to stay in it. The fundamentals of teaching need to be changed to make it more relevant, to the times and for the student to be applied in the regular course of life. Only then will there be optimum productivity. The need to revolutionize the learning process is felt by most, including Elon Musk. Elon has started a school by name of Ad Astra where the student learns through practical application first and then the theory comes in.
We at Ideaboxx also are trying to bring in new innovative techniques of teaching. What we have done is twofold.
First, we teach our students vocational courses on live vehicles and in a live environment. That is when we ended up converting our showroom to a classroom. Here the student not only learns about the real-time problems in the vehicle but also becomes accustomed to the technological change in the industry. Such a student is prepared mentally and skill wise to tackle problems faced by the industry. It gives most of our students an edge over other candidates, increasing his likelihood of being retained.
Second, the biggest challenge of education amongst the poor is the long gestation period which they are not able to sustain financially. This is the reason for the majority of drop-outs. The theory part, which is difficult for most first-generation education seekers (which is our target group), has been drastically reduced.
Consequently, we have managed to reduce the time for learning as well. By reducing this time, we have managed to provide a solution by means of employment with growth prospects and also reduced the gestation period. We at Ideaboxx feel that the only way to pull people out of poverty is by providing them with livelihood quickly with a scope to grow. The need to revolutionize the learning process is a technical challenge, which needs to be addressed to help us prepare our successive generation to tackle dynamic problems. With automation and AI setting in motion the possibility of destroying jobs, the need of the hour is to change learning process and develop critical thinking, decision-making and problem-solving.
(As submitted to IndiStart.com. If you are interested to publish your StartUp story or blog related to startups, please check in here:- Submit StartUp Story)
