Impact of Union Budget 2022 on Higher Education Framework: Need for Redesign

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Impact of Union Budget 2022 on Higher Education Framework: Need for Redesign

5 Feb 2022
- admin
It was heartening to see the direction of growth outlined by the FM in the recent budget. Not only was the thrust inclusive, it was also very futuristic. In fact, it was a blend of the two which seems highly relevant and intriguing. Ideas like delivery of digital and high-tech services to farmers, use of Kisan drones, launching funds with blended capital to fund agriculture start-ups/ sunrise sector/ MSMEs, etc., and increased digitalisation in every sphere, thrust to infrastructure, urban development, logistics, sustainability, certainly hold the key to fast, sustainable and balanced growth.

Education being the key driving force to enable such quality growth in any country, it is highly important that education institutions also rise to the challenge and strengthen the hands of the government. They need to redesign their curriculum, pedagogy, learning methodologies & ecosystem, to be in sync with this promising vision of the nation.

Therefore, it is important to create space in the curriculum and give attention to areas like Sustainability, Digital business & innovation, Fintech, Analytics, AI, ML, Blockchain, Smart cities, and New age business models.

While one can create separate courses with suitable learning outcomes for each of these areas, it will probably be more impactful to embed these areas in the existing courses of the curriculum. E.g., while teaching finance, one could build in specific modules for green finance, impact investing, entrepreneurial finance, financial analytics, fintech, etc. Likewise, in HR, emphasis could be on future of workplaces and new age organisation culture models in start-ups/ unicorns in contrast to traditional companies. In addition to digital business and analytics courses, using blend of the two for business applications will help solve more management problems. Case studies used by faculty members, guest sessions from industry leaders, student club activities, dissertation projects, internships, etc. should also speak to the same learning objectives & theme in order to encourage students to think in these directions and enable learning stickiness. Of course, interdisciplinary courses/ learning events, interventions in design thinking, whole systems thinking, which integrate learning will also help the students to think creatively and holistically.

Finally, if we take a step ahead, can we think of redesigning our approach to creating elective courses or specialisations, post the core business courses foundation? Can we think of going beyond traditional specialisations of Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations, etc. or Industry specialisations in management curriculum? Can these be designed more around the skills sets required by the economy and also as aligned to the purpose of each individual? E.g., tracks like Digitalisation, Analytics, Sustainability (ESG), Urban Development & Smart Cities, Inclusion, etc. are domain agnostic, prepare students for a wide range of careers and at the same time help them contribute better to nation building. Management as a skill set can be applied to any sphere. So far, the biggest end user has been industry and corporate world. But with a little imagination, it can be extended and applied to other critical segments of social sector, governance, public policy, agriculture, and so on.

It is time to think afresh and redesign the education models to serve its true objective of improving quality of human lives and serve the society. Government has shown farsightedness and courage in defining a bold & contemporary vision, promised support and laid a broad road map. We all need to now come together and think of ways to enable its effective implementation. Only then, can this dream of building a stronger country come true where everyone has equal access to opportunities and an equitable share of growth!

Dr. Neetika Batra
Dean & Professor, 1 Year PGPM
SOIL Institute of Management

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