Developments in education: 2016

As we bid goodbye to the year 2016, it is time to reflect on how the education sector has fared over the past 12 months.

Education is the foundation on which the next generation is going to chart out its future, and how today’s students turn out will determine the quality of life of parents and teachers, who will be the senior citizens of tomorrow.

Technology-based teaching at school levels, surprisingly, did not see any significant increase, although dozens of innovative apps were put on the market this year. In fact, the concept of computerised smart boards in classrooms actually saw a decline from the previous years. Face-to-face connect with teachers still seems to be the preferred form of interaction.

However, on the other hand, this year saw a proliferation of both school and college students using various apps to help them with their studies. This has also created a dilemma in the minds of parents who do not know whether to give smart phones to their children as learning aids for studies, or to restrict usage fearing that they may get addicted to gaming and social media.

Different perspective

For the first time, parents have started questioning whether engineering is the most lucrative profession of all. On the other hand, newer branches of engineering such as robotics, nanotechnology, aerospace or artificial intelligence are attracting more students.
The field of medicine saw intense confusion for months this year, regarding the uncertainty between NEET and CET entrance exams, but thankfully matters have been sorted out and those aspiring to become doctors will have to appear only for NEET exam (except some specific institutions). Unfortunately, there has not been any marked increase in the number of medical colleges, making admission into MBBS highly competitive. Pure Sciences have started attracting more and more students, with a large increase in candidates appearing for undergraduate courses. Job opportunities in private sector have also increased this year.

More options

Wider choices in Boards are being offered to students with more schools getting affiliated to IGCSE and IB Boards. This includes new schools that opened this year and existing schools who are now offering these alternatives to students who earlier were doing CBSE, ICSE or SSLC only.

Similarly, enrolments for National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) went up this year. In fact, NIOS now has the largest number of students enrolled for various courses all over the country, and the Karnataka Regional Centre has been very active in helping students whose needs are different.

The attraction for Boards such as IGCSE and IB is largely among students who wish to go abroad for their undergraduate studies. International schools and education consultants are offering attractive openings for students to study abroad. While some amount of uncertainty has been created as to how the policy of the new US government is likely to be, other countries like Singapore, UK, Australia and New Zealand, along with some European countries, are attracting Indian students.

Foreign universities in India

Though there have been talks for many years about allowing foreign universities in India, some small steps have been taken this year to propagate 'twinning’ programmes, where students study part of their degree in India and part in a reputed university abroad. Students at the school level currently can expect more such opportunities by the time they come to college.

Wider choices

With the coming of age of Liberal Arts and Sciences, new avenues have opened up for students who do not wish to stay with traditional careers or courses. Many existing fields such as Law, Design, Education and Social Sciences saw a spurt this year.

Involvement of corporates
Other than the corporate entities like Wipro who have set up universities, many other business conglomerates are actively involving themselves in making higher education more industry-friendly and making graduates more employable.
With Big Data and Analytics firms projected to become one of the largest employers in the next decade, such initiatives will help innumerable students in acquiring career oriented skills.

Start-ups

There are more and more full-time students who are into start-ups. Since app-based enterprises do not require either infrastructure or large investment, and since they can be operated from home with friends acting as employees, some students this year actually managed to make decent sums of money in their ventures while studying.

At the same time, a much larger number of students, who became over-ambitious and felt they could launch off in business early in life, found that it is not so easy.
Overall, the year has been one of ups and downs, but in many ways the foundation has been laid for better things to come, and students in India can look forward to greater opportunities, better methods of learning and more interesting activities as they learn in the years to come.