Innovation in the Curriculum and Industry Immersion are Key Factors in Choosing Universities?

Author: Er. Koneru Satyanarayana, Chancellor, KL Deemed to be University

The evolving new age technologies made a tremendous impact on revising and enriching the curriculum. It became the core aspect of streamlining the curriculum to be Industry specific in order to build the required skill set among the students. It is most required for the students to choose a university which offers an industry-oriented curriculum and further makes them ready to handle higher order problems in real work environments.

Designing the curriculum to bridge the gap between the Industry and Academia will support students to stay abreast with the industry needs and thus enabling them to bag the best. Industries these days look for a talented workforce who can make the right use of technologies. The traditional methods of catering to a business problem hold no value as new-age technologies have stepped in. Therefore, it is crucial for the academic institutes to consider the needs of modern industry while developing a curriculum and for the institutions to put it into practice. Students will therefore acquire knowledge of contemporary technology and appropriate applications for them.

Holistic development through multidisciplinary studies: Effective curriculum design leads to a holistic development of the students providing them the basic knowledge on ethics, human values, gender sensitization, effective communication and awareness on environmental aspects while ensuring technical expertise. This type of education focuses on creating versatile individuals with the abilities and skills necessary for the twenty-first century in a variety of fields. The curriculum must support students to gain certain transferable skills like critical thinking, design thinking, logical thinking, problem solving etc., which can be applied over a societal problem to derive a feasible solution. Curriculum must provide a scope to the students in order to take up multi-disciplinary projects and internships through enabling them to address problems on domains like healthcare, energy, water and sanitization, etc., and apply their technical knowledge to derive a solution.

Global degree model

Curriculum addressing domain-based specializations either through honors or minors became the need of the hour. To make it much more vibrant, students must have a choice of extending their studies with any other International Institutes to make it a global degree model. Global degree model supports students to get global exposure and establish global connections. Students get an opportunity to explore and build a network with global peers by taking up programs like twinning, joint and dual degree. Bringing in an international curriculum by rightly integrating courses offered by globally reputed Institutes ensures global exposure to students. Global degree model supports making education more focused, adaptable, and valuable. Hence, it became crucial for universities to be abreast with niche areas and accordingly blend them into curriculum.

Outcome attainment through experiential learning

Designing a curriculum which supports courses being offered in varied modes enhances the students to choose a course as per their learning style. The mode of a course may differ based on the teaching learning process adopted and/or evaluation method towards the outcome attainment. Courses offered in modes like Work-in lieu, Informal learning supports students to involve themselves in more activities and/or industry specific problem solving in order to attain enhanced outcomes. The objective behind this is to enhance student participation and support them in attaining higher order skills towards the industry context.

All things considered!

Technological advancements have influenced education which brought tremendous change in designing the new pedagogy of teaching and learning. Digital transformations are now more important than ever for students to become tech-savvy in order to meet employer requirements. Choosing a university that offers a curriculum enabled towards employability, research and innovation pathways is essential. Students must be prepared for the real-world problem within their curriculum which is either industry-focused and/or supporting them to be a successful entrepreneur by ensuring that they gain the right skills.

In order to create an industry-oriented/research and innovation enabled skill set while preparing students for the real-world experiences, universities must design their curricula considering global degree model, multidisciplinary and holistic education through experiential learning.