2021

We have to do lot many things to improve the number of international students who are coming to India, says Dr. Mrs. Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. What’s your vision and view about the concept of New Normal? The concept is very good because New Normal is New Normal and everybody has to abide by the New Normal. Its good that people learn about New Normal and how to adjust in the New Normal, sooner the better. Its very timely that you held this Education Leadership summit to make people aware that what is new normal and how they have to work in order to be successful in the new normal. Being a lady there are very few people in the country who are holding such reputed and honored position. How do you feel like being in this position and what’s your vision ahead for AIU? I’m very happy, it’s very true that women have to struggle more than the men for achieving any position especially that glass ceiling is there and its very difficult to break the glass ceiling, so you feel very happy and you feel like doing lot more. Like you want to do lot of things for the nation for the country, for the education sector when you are in this position. As the Secretary General of Association of Indian Universities where we have more than 850 universities as our members so its very good to work for the entire Higher Education sector, to do a lot of work in terms of say academics, research, internationalization of higher education, sports, culture. So, it’s a body which is involved in holistic developments of the students in all manners, not only in academics and research but also in cultures and sports events. You mentioned about the internationalization of universities, can you please elaborate on what AIU is doing on it? Right now, you will be surprised to know that especially if we talk of international students, from India, about 8 to 10 lack students go out every year but when you talk about students coming to India it is less than 50 thousand, around 46 thousand students are coming to India and that too only from the neighboring countries like Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh. So, we have to do lot many things to improve the number of international students who are coming to India. To that extent AIU is doing a lot of things, for example when we talk of international collaborations we see that many times specially the foreign universities who want to come to India, they don’t come to know that which university is good in which area so we are building an AIU collaboration portal where the foreign universities will know that which university is good in which area, so that they can straight away collaborate. Secondly in spite of so many year independence we do not have a network of international educators, like Nafsa is a network and there are so many networks in different countries but India does not have a network of international educators, so what happens in India is that very few universities are good in internationalization and many of them who want to do internationalization they don’t know how to do it, whom to contact, how to start. So, we are building a network which will help in a lot of information sharing, knowledge sharing so that the good ones can hand hold the not so good ones and everybody can move together.

I’m trying to revamp the academic reforms, says Prof. Ambrish Sharan Vidhyarthi, Vice Chancellor, Bikaner Technical University Rajasthan in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. What are your views on the socio-economic transformation in the education sector? Socio economical and emotional intelligence and the divide which we are facing in the current scenario, it’s basically if we look at our education systems during the historic times, in the gurukul we have people like Lord Rama and the Kevat, where all together was studying. What happens in the next, Dwapad you know, we have excluded the Eklavya and Arjuna and made this. So if you think of both this divisions, Ram rajya was established because of the inclusion of all the people and the Mahabharat happens when we have started making the distinguish between the people so if we want to attain our own glory in education like the Vishwa guru, I think that we have to go back to the Rama stage and that would be good enough and we as a University, we have all the opportunities and we have to put the efforts to make that happen to the Treta Yug or Sata Yug. Under your leadership how has Bikaner Technical University been transformed and what are your vision going forward? Well my thinking is that I should play a key role in understanding the student’s need. If we can make the students so versatile in the thinking, so humble in the nature and so dedicated towards the work and the duties and the society, then definitely we would be able to produce a good quality of citizens and that’s the aim of the university and I’m trying to revamp the academic reforms, whatever is possible but at the same time I am very happy to tell you that this university has already started to inculcate the human values in our students and we are the leader, we have given around training to 70000 students including the teachers in which around 40000 teachers are now well trained to give the human values to the students. What are the takeaways of an event or a networking gathering like this, ELSA 2021? In my opinion definitely, it has sensitized the need of the hour and this will be beneficial to the entire education world, where the people can appreciate the ideas which has been discussed over here. So, I congratulate you for holding this kind of event and this should be happening not only on year basis, it should be more frequent.

UTS University has also signed some articulation agreements in India, says Pankaj Jain, Regional Director India Subcontinent, UTS College Australia in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. What is the vision and mission statement of your UTS College? We are actually University of Technology Sydney College, we are affiliated and fully owned by UTS university, so we are the pathway provider for UTS university. Our main aim is to help students who do not directly get into UTS university by providing them a pathway option of like diplomas or foundation and even pre-masters and masters level now. So basically, we have around 45000 students at the university which is a big thing, located in Sydney so very popular for engineering, the name itself says technology, its very popular for business, design, fashion, architecture. We do all the courses, location is also very strategic so it makes a lot of sense. Sydney, Melbourne these are two very big cities of Australia so lot of students go from South Asia. What are your initiatives for student exchange and faculty exchange programs between the nations? Basically, as UTS college we have TNE agreements across China, we have in Indonesia, Vietnam, we have in Sri Lanka our own campus, UTS college. We have tied up with East West University in Bangladesh, we are exploring some tie-ups in India and Nepal also. Where TNE like Transnational education where one year will be studied in local partner institution and 2 years the student goes to Australia to study. Besides this UTS University also has signed some articulation agreements in India which are like tie-up sort of thing so they are also working on those. In your perspective how does such kind of educational gatherings where you can see representation of the government, corporates, education leaders, helps overall education fraternity to collaborate? I think it’s a very important forum because when you are doing video conferencing and skype meetings people are not able to meet people, here when people interact during high tea, during lunch, during conferences and after conferences it gives them a good forum to at least meet people, exchange cards, discuss somethings and at least they can learn some example instead of doing just a virtual conference. So, I think physical conferences are the future which will happen and I think it’s a big learning exercise for all, even government people, private people, universities, schools etc.