Higher Studies (Beyond 12th class)

The Spiritual side

The spiritual side of SoM’s higher education institutes will be very similar to what has been explained already. Also, in this age group, addiction is likely to be a big issue. So, there will be special arrangements for de-addiction and rehab.

The Academic side

A short overview of the main components:

• Vocational courses- These are primarily for Rural community. The courses may be focussed on English Speaking, Computer Technician training, MS Office, Hotel Management, and more.

• BA/BSc/BCom: These are very common in India. SoM needs to implement all these in a very innovative, experiential, and high-quality manner.

• Short courses: Examples: 4 months Java course; 5 months app development courses; Web development courses; 2 months Photoshop Course; 3 months Video editing Course; etc.

• Engineering/BTech (especially Computer Science): Focus more on critical skills like programming, problem-solving, and practise, practise, and practise. Engineering colleges are failing in a major way in India because of lack of focus on these aspects. Rote learning is still a king in most Tier2 and Tier3 engineering colleges. Rote learning must be treated as an enemy of learning. Online platforms, like Hacker Rank, Leetcode, etc, are the way to go for programming practise. Such solutions need to be found out for other areas of Engineering.

• Online Learning through Youtube, Udemy, Coursera, EdX, NPTEL, etc, can help a great deal in bringing down the cost of hiring good professors and teachers. Why hire a professor when one can learn from one of the greatest professors or teachers in that area from a free online course? Lack of motivation is always an issue. To handle that, teachers can work with the students to facilitate learning. Also, it is better to hire a few top teachers than many average ones. With the help of TAs and online course material, these great teachers will be able to teach many-more students.

• Experiential learning: Rote learning is like an epidemic in Indian education system and perhaps in the US and other education systems also. Experiential learning through project work and problem-solving is what is needed in higher education and that is what companies need in their employees. Rote learning can be done by AI and robots far better than us humans. Projects given in colleges these days are often bought from the market or copied from the internet (I myself did it :-D). Good projects require critical thinking and are challenging and generally, they can not be procured ready-made from online or offline sources.
  Walter Lewin, famously known as the best Physics professor in the world, was a Dutch astrophysicist and retired professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is quite famous for his teaching approach.

• Low Cost: Everything will be done while keeping the costs low. From building architecture to teaching methodologies to computer labs, everything will be designed to be low cost so that students need to pay less and everyone can afford the courses. There are many unusual ways to reduce such costs drastically. Check this video of Laurie Baker, an exceptional architect who designed and built low cost buildings in Southern India.