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“Very recently we have decided on one student one skill kind of an initiative so which is equally important that every year they get some skill and they are more industry ready,” says Prof. Sandeep Sancheti, Provost, (Vice-Chancellor), Marwadi University, Rajkot in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad As we witnessed to listen to you in the first panels which talked about the National Education Policy, any initiatives which under your leadership the university has already taken or in plans to take to actually Implement that? Yeah, so NEP is a very important direction for all of us, very open also so I’m sure most of the institutions have done something or else in this direction. So, is the case with the Marwadi University that we have done many of them for example we are now offering programs under ABC Academic Bank of Credit and to offer that we have created committees which will be doing the credit equivalences, credit transfers and other things which will take care of all related activities. We also made sure that we offer three year and four-year programs which are again the order of the NEP in the sense that it should be flexible. So, recently coined programs on BSc have been done three and four years particularly we have converted some of the honours program into four years our student can make an exit after three years and will get non-honours program. We have also rephrased the programs in such a manner that after first year one can make an exit and, in that case, they will have to do a small module which will be of skilling so with that skilling they can also get certification or maybe diploma and things like that so these are all in line. With that very recently we have decided on one student one skill kind of an initiative so which is equally important that every year they get some skill and they are more industry ready and there’s a whole lot of things which we are trying to do when we talk of multi-disciplinary. When we talk of research, when we talk of internationalization Marwadi University anyway is ahead though it’s very young but it’s doing very very well. So, the buzzword of now a times in many of the forums is about the newest technologies so if I ask about the ICT or the edtech implementation in your university? Edtech implementation is most essential for everyone including my university, fortunately we are young so more adoptable more dynamic and we also owe our origin to a finance company called Marwadi shares and finance limited which was purely electronic since inception so we know that in our roots all these things are there. So, as an example we have a system called URP, University Resource Planning which is end to end from admission to alumni everything is taken care nothing is done on paper including every examination result or maybe copy showing or any approval any, event anything is done online only so we have made many IT based or IT support systems to make sure that students in our activities are supported. As an example, if I have to issue a book I have to carry the book go in front of the system it will recognize me with face recognition I have to put the book which I want to get issued, book will be issued to me there is no human interaction or intervention in the process so that much of automation we have done when it comes to teaching learning. Obviously, we are doing things from MOOC so we are partners of Coursera we are doing everything possibly online through a lot of blended mode teaching learning. So, we have trained hundred percent of teachers for that and we also made compulsory in certain cases in engineering and other disciplines that some of the labs and courses will be virtual mode done virtually and some of the courses will be delivered in an online mode so that the students become familiar with that. So, all that whatever can be done to make them more IT savvy and more IT ready in terms of use as well as delivery has been done. So, one very typical and a very old question I will ask is alumni meet important and why? Alumni meet would always be important for the simple reason that alumni are always a growing base every year in that base number of alumni will get added it may be thousands or two thousand or whatever it may be whereas rest of the numbers will grow slowly. So, in a given institution if the strength is five thousand, ten thousand the alumnus may be twenty thousand, thirty thousand and if you are not able to connect with your own people in a right manner then obviously you are not going to grow you are not taking care of them. Alumni is important also because they also give a lot of feedback they also give lot of inputs, they also give you a lot of teaching learning support they also give you a lot of connect with the industry and so on so forth so that you get the projects and all that so that’s the second reason alumni are important. The third thing I would say is alumni themselves continue to remain a student for future today’s education goes for matured students also so every alumni who has graduated from Marwadi will have to learn something new and why shouldn’t we help our own alumni. So, our alumni connect is important we do it in a very formal way in a certain way we award them, reward them we call them and so on so forth but there is no limit what more can be done. Fortunately for us in all formal

“Until and unless the industries come forward in framing the curriculum with the universities then this will not be helpful,” says Prof. Ravikumar K., Director, Bapu Gujarat Knowledge Village, Gandhinagar in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would like to understand and please give key highlights about your institution? Yeah, my institution is 13 years old institution, we started with engineering and pharmacy now we’ve grown up to we have law, nursing, science and commerce colleges separately and we are affiliated to different universities like the core branches like professional branches are affiliated to Gujarat Technological University and other branches are affiliated to Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. According to you how does the industry-based curriculum helps in a better employability and how skill plays an important role in the current based of curriculums? Until and unless the skill is there nobody can be employed actually. So, only going with the curriculum that has been designed by the university will not be helping the industries to go about. That’s why whenever they appoint anybody they will be having some training of kind of thing what I suggest is the training what they want to give at the industry level if they start at the curriculum level itself, at the University level itself, at the college level itself it will be too good that’s what when the discussion is industry institute the relationship or the gap should be bridged totally. Until and unless the industries come forward in framing the curriculum with the universities then this will not be helpful. So, I am very much about that at least the last year of the curriculum of the universities, industry should take it up and it should train the students whatever maybe it is professional or non-professional whether it is science or commerce. For example, whenever you talk about commerce, a commerce graduate should know tally 100% but there is no tally in the curriculum. I request the industry so that let them come let them come to the college as to the Institute to the universities and tell them this is what we need so that they will have ready-made employees for their institutions. So, as the event name shows that it’s a New Normal Education Leadership Summit what does the word New Normal stands for you? See when we talk about pre-covid and post-covid, New Normal is very much essential because earlier when 10 years back when we talk about the colleges or finishing school they were thinking only about the personal development of the student they were not thinking about the technical. The new normal is whenever an industry is there industry needs a specific information or the specific knowledge of that particular student until and unless the specific knowledge is there the industry cannot employ that particular student or a fresh graduate. So, new normal stands that the specifications, earlier only the soft skills were the requirement of the industry, the technical knowledge was given by the universities but now in the technical or non-technical knowledge they need specificity in this. So, for example when we talk about the computer, some industries need python some industries near artificial intelligence now when we are giving in the curriculum of the university we are talking only about entire thing they will be master of none, that should not be the case. The New Normal is specific knowledge on that particular platform as I was telling you about the commerce thing, until and unless tally is taught to the student he will not be employed he will not be employed by the industries.    

“We do see this is the reason, we keep maintaining that we are not an education institution just for employment but it is for empowerment,” says Prof. M. Muruganant, Provost, Adani University, Ahmedabad in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would like to understand more about your university, what your university is doing how its multi-disciplinary and in multi divisions you are working? See we being I would say Green Field University we’re fairly new into the university world and so we had the leverage of implementing NEP modules from the very start itself. Multi-disciplinary as we see we have several disciplines which find confluence but we have programs not just as a degree programs but research programs wherein the students can take projects at the boundaries of disciplines so that the disciplinary boundaries can be blurred off and it can be transdisciplinary and the other the best point of our university is that we also get projects live from corporate and so any problem is always transdisciplinary a problem is never a disciplinary problem right and so we find a confluence there. As most of the curriculum or the pedagogy which we see is driving, wants to become a normal a professional employee what about giving an exposure to the students opting for entrepreneurship? We do see this is the reason we keep maintaining that we are not an education institution just for employment but it is for empowerment. Yes, when we say we are for empowering individuals and empowered individuals can be a perfect employee or become a perfect employer and the employers are the ones whom we call as entrepreneurs because they actually take to innovative ways and means to start addressing societal problems right and that is something which from the day one of entering our institution we encourage for them to deal with societal problems and start handling that. So, in that way a new approach of engagement and then contribution happens. In what ways Industry ready curriculum is important and what ways you are implementing that in your university? Okay see what happens is when the student from the time the student is onboarded they start interacting with Industries and they have several engagements it could be internships it could be projects or they could be actually working with real-time projects and that’s a big benefit that we have that we have huge businesses across diverse portfolios and the students can choose which portfolio actually they want to go and work. It could be infrastructure it could be energy it could be technology it could be you know Healthcare or Advanced Manufacturing Systems. We have it all running in businesses including our focus is sustainability and so we are a huge contributor to Green energy right and the renewable energy solar energy so students get to see it all happening whether it is sports or the transport industry everywhere. As the event names also shows that it’s a New Normal Education Leadership Summits and Awards, how would you define new normal? New Normal is not just employment it’s empowerment, all right so I keep maintaining the stand that when we are focused on translating information to implementation and we transcend the silos of disciplines and mental conditionings and we enable transformation of the student as a person and their contribution to the nation through the societal transformation. So, the 3T model which I always advocate which is translation then transcending and transformation. This are the three principal models which is already finding expression in our system and that’s a new normal I would say where technology finds natural confluence in the presence and we have sustainability. I’m happy and glad to share that we recently celebrated our first anniversary and the year of existence of one and a half years has been very thrilling very exciting especially in this covid times, any message would you like to give for ArdorComm Media Group? Well such platforms enable us to come together on the various portfolios, from Industries and Academia or the policy makers now we come together on this platform and we meet greet and not stop there but then we have a joint collaboration happening. The first point here again is cooperation that happens in such platforms and that’s exactly what you guys are creating you know a platform for cooperation to start and then we start collaborating. So, this is a seed place where we start cooperating right and I wish many more such events you make and more focused events also would be great.

“It is rightly said nothing is permanent but change what education was a decade back or two decades back has completely changed,” says Prof. Ami U. Upadhyay, Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would you like to put some light on the way you are taking the leadership of this University and what are the few important works as a case study which you like to share with us? First of all, when we talk about the leadership, team matters a lot I would say as a leader that I have been blessed with a wonderful team at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar State Open University. I very strongly believe that being in education since more than two decades that education can bring very positive change in the society so when we talk about the social development, economic development or national development education is destined to play very important vital role. When we talk about the role that I played in my Institute or my Institute played a certain role in society in Gujarat State I would say ours is the only State Open University, after 28 years recently we went for the first NAAC cycle and we are the first State Open University in India and First State University in Gujarat to be accredited with A++ and the credit goes to team BOU and a lot of initiatives that we have taken up understanding the true essence of education that I think have played vital role. What’s the blend of digital education and the traditional education in your University? It is rightly said nothing is permanent but change what education was a decade back or two decades back has completely changed. As an open University I would say that digital education plays vital role at a university I’ll give example of our university only that we have our own indigenous MOOC platform named as Omkar E, UGC has Swayam in the same way with four quadrants we have this particular MOOC platform so our courses are available on those platforms also we have a platform all digital books textbooks are available free of cost on that particular platform we have our own community radio working wonderfully for the community around the university. So, we are very active on social media be it be telegram Facebook and Instagram we have been and I think digital is New Normal for learners today so obviously the educational institute will have to understand that aspect of education. So, what does the word new normal for you stands? You see when we say new normal, New Normal is a not a particular milestone or a particular place it is a continuous process. Just think of it that before 20 years, long back pager was a new normal then mobile was a new normal now you know it keeps on changing. So, new normal is today something else tomorrow it will be something else and after tomorrow something else. Obviously after Corona we have understood new normal in particular since then now physically things are possible but I would say this phrase new normal keeps on changing be it be thought process of an individual, be it education system be it technology anything it keeps on changing. We have all gathered here we’ve been witnessing that there are the players from the government fraternity, from the private sector the edtech players the corporate, what should be the outcome of certain forums? From your question I’m reminded of my childhood when all of us used to play with jigsaw puzzle you know there will be a piece we will have a complete picture on a page and then the pieces of that game and we used to put those particular pieces at its right place to create a completely right picture. I think be it be Educational Institute, individual human beings, learners, edtech, government policy makers all of them are very important pieces of this jigsaw puzzle and when all of us become active very focused very result oriented and very importantly work together for the same kind of destination we can create the right picture of education, I very strongly believe. I’m proud to say that we have recently completed our one year of existence and we celebrated our anniversary any message would you like to give for ArdorComm Media Group? When you talk about new normal and we talked about nothing is permanent but change I feel always that ArdorComm should keep on working on continuous communication because at a point of time when communication stops or that order that passion seizes, things will not move forward so I would convey that I would very strongly say that passionately continue this communication. Let there be lot of difference in the means of communication and the messages that are being communicated wish you very all the best.