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“Quality education and employability, these two objectives of higher education can definitely be achieved if there is a full support of the industry in the processes,” says Prof. Dr. H L Verma, President (Vice Chancellor), Jagannath University, Rajasthan in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan How’s your experience of witnessing today’s forum of Education Leadership Summit and Awards? I must convey my thanks to ArdorComm Media Group for taking this initiative because it is the need of the time that you are able to bring industry stalwarts and the academic leaders at one platform and in the changed scenario. So, there is a need that the education is made more industry oriented because in the present market economy it is the demand of the economy that students ought to be upskilled, they need to be trained in a way that ultimately, they are fit for job. So, quality education and employability, these two objectives of higher education can definitely be achieved if there is a full support of the industry in the processes. In isolation neither academic institutions can work effectively nor industry, for industry also it is required now in the whole process this higher educational scenario is going to be changed. Every one of us will have to have a very clear-cut future vision that what type of education now it is going to be as in the developed nations we find that industry and the academic institutions they work with close interactions so the same way industry should also come forward, they need to provide funds to the academic institutions but at the same time the system should be such that whatever is the outcome of education so that need to be shared with the industry and the outcome need to be marketed by the industry. For example, there is a research project funded by the industry so whatever is the outcome of that project ultimately resulting into patents or resulting into they can say the marketable products. So, that should be the ultimate domain of the industry now unless and until in Indian conditions also, so this type of environment will emerge that industry interests are also taken care of, academic institutions interests are also taken care of and only then the right type of skill development can take place among the students that it is now a type of situation type of environment that in which everyone has to open up its steps and take the support of all relevant professionals and Industry people so that our youth our young generation so they are fully prepared to handle the future challenges. With that background I am sure that this type of initiative which has been taken by Chandan ji so it is highly appreciable and in future so these types of more initiatives need to be taken and industry people and the academic institutions. So, all that requires change in mindset of the people now, so no academic institution can achieve excellence, can work in isolation and even I will suggest that the institutions instead of having practical labs within the campus and if these can be established inside the industry and the students go there in the industry they get more practical experience. So, that type of you can say arrangement that will help achieve quality and student will be ready for the product development. I can say so because hands-on experience is more important so it is now education for market economy. So, theory and practice gap is to be bridged at all levels otherwise no institution can survive, can grow in the times to come so that is the type of environment which I understand is required. I am glad to say that recently ArdorComm Media celebrated its one year of existence and one and a half years has already gone, we have seen many leaps and bounds, any message or advice would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? ArdorComm is doing a great job, you are really providing leadership and what others neither at the government level nor at the institutions level alone can do it. So, organizations like you may be in the initial stage there can be certain difficulties because the most difficult thing in the society is to bring change in the mindset of all stakeholders. So, you are doing that, it’s really appreciable and it is a great job and we wish a great success for you because bringing industry and academics at one platform in itself is a great thing.  

“I think skill in terms of ‘RUN’ which is my punch word here, where I say Reskilling, Upskilling and New age skills,” says Prof. Dr. Padmakali Banerjee, President, Sir Padmapat Singhania University, Udaipur in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan Would like to understand and know more about your University? Sir Padmapat Singhania University is based out of Udaipur, the city of lakes and one of the world’s tourism capital of India and this is an initiative of the JK cement which is a very large group, one of the world’s largest manufacturer of white cement and grey cement. This University is a 15-year-old University and it is a very forward-looking University where there is a lot of importance which has been given to the new age education in terms of the professional skill courses and the industry integrated programs coupled with internationalization. How do you rate and how much focus you are giving on skilling part? I think this is something that it is the need of the hour, so as I was in the deliberations today, I mentioned that I think skill today is the most important. I think skill in terms of ‘RUN’ which is my punch word here, where I say Reskilling, Upskilling and New age skills, so every curriculum has been integrated for having certain employability skills also skills which will be enabler for the very chaotic world that we are seeing in the future. Being a corporate governed University does it play a good factor for getting admissions or is still the same way as other Universities are doing? I think it is a brilliant question, the answer is yes where we are looking at not just the admission part but I think the delivery part because I talk about three I’s, innovation in curriculum design, industry integration and internationalization, so in the second ‘I’ of Industry integration here is a university where the students can also go for immersion programs. So, while we go for the most of the universities around from all walks of life for example in the tech area if you look at, very recently we tied up with HCL technology then if you look at Commonwealth education, so I think in a very big way partnerships are playing a very big role at the University and so are the very great placement opportunities and the so-called median salary and the top of the salary. So, I think I see a great opportunity serving such a University. At your role balancing finances is equally important, how do you address when it comes for an edtech integration in your University? I see a business plan for anything, suppose we are going to set up our program say on robotics, so I think you need to set up the actual work area. For example, the labs so we see it as a part of the business plan so even before launching a program, we have that set. For example, even it’s in the data analytics we had a robust partnership with SAS so now our entire cluster is getting that kind of a collaboration and we’re also getting a lot of projects coming from industry, for example we recently got a very good grant for offering programs on the online platform from Commonwealth education. We all have gathered at New Normal Education Leadership Summit, so according to you what is New Normal? I just mentioned in the session today, for me it is a brave New Normal wherein we are doing everything which is breaking the age-old norms. So, whether it is digitalization, whether it is the way we are connecting to the communities, the way the relationships have been, I see slowly the gap that we were talking about 10 years back about industry where I think a lot of tech companies were struggling to make an appearance, I think I see now educators are also coming together. So, I see forming a league which will create a very beautiful and a Happy New India that we look at where education will play a great role. Any message for ArdorComm Media Group? I think ArdorComm Media Group that you have set up, congratulations for the kind of associations you have already created getting almost maybe 30 to 40 top Educators itself, I think already is something that you have won. What I also want to really leave you with is that every organization has to look for the development of youth at large so I think in each of the projects, how are you taking care of the ESG aspect of economy, social relevance and corporate governance. So, that is just a message and since you are with the youth for the youth so I suggest then bring in their seventh sense which is their optimistic intelligence and I think as a technology company it’ll be very easy that you can start bridging that area as well.  

“We are in need to first digitalize our campuses, give them IT facilities and infrastructure so that we can reach to the students and needy ones in a better manner,” says Dr. Vinod Bhardwaj, Associate Professor, Dept. of College Education, Govt. of Rajasthan in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan How’s your experience to witness the New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards? This is a great privilege to be a part of this event over here in fact, after covid I am witnessing the first program of this kind where people are talking about education quality, innovation, skilling and digitalization of the educational institutions. Basically, what is happening that after covid a lot of changes have taken place in educational domain but very few people took care about those changes and those compulsions. So, this platform is giving that kind of discussion and bringing people to have the discourse on the changes and their remedies. It was a pleasure for me to be a part of this event that when we were discussing about the innovation and skilling and digitalization of the campuses that’s wonderful program I’m seeing over here and I really admire and acknowledge the contribution of ArdorComm that they have taken this initiative and this program is being organized in Jaipur. Dr Bhardwaj you have been doing so many works under your department to impart digital education, any special initiatives or anything which you remember during your tenure which you would like to share as an experience or as a case study? In fact, after covid we are also just looking for the social media platforms and IT based platforms where we can disseminate the knowledge or the contents to the students. So, we started one program like Gyandoot, so we were having online classes but again whenever we talk about the free sources or free resources available there is a restriction about that. We understand that if we use them then there are restrictions of sometimes storing, sometimes the buffering problem, sometimes the delivery problems, sometimes the network problem, a lot of things. So, instead of that if we can have some small investments in such kind of facilities and inviting some agencies, expert domain people to make this thing facilitate so what will happen certainly our part is to deliver educational content and to reach up to these students that we can do easier. So, we started some program Gyandoot, I remember that more than six lakhs viewers were there when we started this program after one month or so then after that Gyansodha, Gyanganga this kind of program we also started. So, these are all IT based programs and what is the result of these all things or initiative so that certainly we are in need to first digitalize our campuses, give them IT facilities and infrastructure so that we can reach to the students and needy ones in a better manner, that we can do. How does certain kind of forums help when we see educators, academicians, edtech companies, startups and even the representation from government uniting at one platform? Definitely this helps a lot, because couple of years back I was a part of this kind of programs, higher education conclave, even some programs were organized in the association with our department when I was there also and my former commissioners and additional chief secretaries they were enough kind to take this kind of initiatives and we started and I remember that you were the part of that, you were the other team lead at that time, so what happened that we got some agencies under the roof we got some MoUs through this kind of programs who got associated with us and we got our institutions benefited. Some kind of training programs to our students, some kind of skilling programs to our students, so this was a great benefit of this kind of program and still I’m looking for such kind of agencies over here in this program as well. So, this is a wonderful program and really this kind of initiatives rather help to bring all the people, the service providers and service takers at one platform under the one roof and you as a facilitator certainly contributed great in that kind of things. We have been gathered here for a New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what does the word new normal for you stands? New normal is in fact after covid this word is being very much used, sometimes it has become rather a part of our discourse at different platforms but really the topic you have chosen for this discourse is the need of hour, new normal means now we have to give up the traditional formats of imparting knowledge or giving knowledge or the curriculum the syllabi especially the mode of delivery is very much important which we have to take care in this phase and so New Normal is very appropriate, what you are using and in the light of this topic a lot of changes are to be taken into institutions and in the mindset of the people. Certainly, when the Vice Chancellor of some universities were discussing in the forum and other educationists were discussing in the morning session I was very happy at least people are worried about all this new normal and they are thinking seriously on this issue that what should be the shape of our institutions and the education system and when they were quoting about the new education policy, the new education policy is also expecting some kind of changes in the system and New Normal is also expecting this so we are going on the right track to combine the two objectives altogether and introduce some changes in this system and they are certainly to be taken whether it is part of research, whether

“I think for each one of us as educators it’s important that they come in live forums like this and interact, share their insight and share it with the whole world because it’s all about learning from each other,” says Dr. Harshita Sharma, Founder & Director, Brainstorm International, Pune in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan You have been witnessing this event since morning, what is your experience and an outcome of the endeavour? I think first of all I should thank Chandan ji and the entire ArdorComm team for connecting so many educators which is very important, because its educators coming from different domains and then sharing their knowledge which is very important. Since morning it has been a really brainstorming sessions, so that is one thing and a lot to take away from all the sessions all the panellists in each session which is fabulous the way the things are organized and managed and the delivery. I think it was just amazing so kudos to the entire team and yes lot of takeaways since morning with the new NEP implementation I think there has been a lot of discussions going on all around how to do it where to start, what need to bring in change and everybody coming with their life experiences, the school sharing their best practices I think that was amazing. How much and how more like in the tech part now the technology would be enabled in the school I think that’s again a thought process which is going on and how do we bring in that balanced approach, how do we make sure that the NEP in the true sense in the real world it can be implemented because right now it’s all in the paper and that can be done if you have such events where everybody brainstorm together and everybody shares their best practice and see that how we can learn from each other because that’s one angle which would be the only way forward. I think for each one of us as educators it’s important that they come in live forums like this and interact, share their insight and share it with the whole world because it’s all about learning from each other, it is all about experiential learning, it’s all about inquiry based, it’s all about the new normal and the new normal will never happen and it’s enacting, if we come together and brainstorm at this. What according to you does new normal stands for? The new normal actually stands from where I begin my journey. So, the new normal would be again for whom it is a new normal, for me, is it for children, is it for parents, for whom? So, being into the education fraternity I think the children become the center and everything falls around with the children. So, if we keep that center always and we revolve around I think we can bring in that change unless and until we do that otherwise I’m doing something, a teacher is doing something but they’re all doing. So, the new normal everything comes with advantages disadvantages so if you even have the technology, how much little or how much more that the balance has to come. Similarly, in the foundational literacy skills also so when you’re talking about the balanced approach which is very important the language and literacy communication. So, when we’re talking about effective communicators also where and how that is something which is very important and that has to be bringing from the best pedagogies. It should be how we do it and how simple we can make it there. What should be the outcome of this event, when we see the edtech players are also here the academicians are here even the government fraternity is there, what should be the benefit from this entire amalgamation? So, instead of blaming, justifying and complaining, I think each one of us if we take 100 percent responsibility of what I can do for my organization that would be like adding value to the nation. Where we are looking ahead at the bigger picture which is there so it starts with me and how can I do even if I can do just say maybe 10 percent, I think that adds, every drop in the ocean matters. I would be glad to share that ArdorComm Media Group has recently completed its one and a half years and we’ve celebrated our anniversary recently, any message or advice would you like to share or give to ArdorComm Media Group? Every challenge is a new opportunity and I think actually every day we learn new things so that’s the message I would give that as a team I think you’re doing a wonderful job, connecting educators because that is where we are talking about shaping the future of children. I think you’re doing a wonderful job and stay blessed and wish you all the best and just amazing to be here and I know, I have seen you for so many years, the kind of work what you’re doing, it comes from heart and not from mind.