Interviews

“I think this is the best time for us to rethink, reimagine and reboot the education system,” says Dr Sandeep Pachpande, Chairman, ASM Group of Institutes in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune Under your leadership how ASM group of Institution is growing and what is the vision forward for next five years? What we at ASM looked at and even I am is that I’m a completely optimist person, I believe every crisis gives an opportunity and that is how we have looked at the crisis as such. A full focus is on use of technology and partnerships with ed-tech companies and industry to develop courses which can increase the employability of the students. Since morning we have been talking about phygital, we are talking about setting up of digital university, multidisciplinary approach, in that robust conditions how have you managed to balance the teaching and learning process in your institutions? See what covid has done is that it gave us a very good option to change our pedagogy and leverage the technology to give students a right blend of a kind of education which will help them not only to learn the knowledge but also understand and, in the future, implement them in the companies which they will go and work for. So, I think the leveraging of these opportunities is what is required and I think this is the best time for us to rethink, reimagine and reboot the education system. Forums like this where we have the blend of academia, the corporate, startups and even a support of the government how does this kind of gathering helps the overall community to grow? So, one of the best things I liked about this event is that it is a mix of all the stakeholders of education and that is what is important. You know I could see not only the owners but directors and some teachers plus ed tech companies and people from the government itself here. And as Chandan you said in one of your talks in the panel it’s very necessary to get everyone on one page so I think that’s what events like this are very useful and I’m sure that you’ll become the catalyst of getting all these people together on one platform. Any message for the students who will be just facing the physical world of the schools and colleges again? I think everyone’s looking forward to the physical mode of education and they should remember that we’re not going to go back to the 100 percent normal again. So, they should leverage both the online and the physical together in the next coming days. Any message would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? Keep on doing the good work and please make sure that you include all the stakeholders in your programs make sure that you do this at a regular level and it doesn’t stay with just the people who attend it make sure that it reaches the policy makers as well as the people who did not attend this.  

“If you have a good network you have an excellent net worth,” says Dr Sachin S Vernekar, Dean, FMS; Director, IMED, Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune Under your leadership how IMED has diversified in overall development in teaching and learning process? At the very outset let me congratulate ArdorComm Media for the excellent job you have done because today network is net worth and you have brought the academicians, the corporates almost all the stakeholders on the same platform that’s a great job you have done I would say. As far as I’m concerned, I have joined Bharati Vidyapeeth in 1985 and for the last 37 years I’m working for Bharati Vidyapeeth. From a faculty to director, to team, campus in charge, so I have played different roles in Bharati Vidyapeeth. Like Indra Nooyi always says we are all students, throughout our life we have to be students even today I am a student so I have tried my best to ensure that our students get the right input because through seven tire feedback system the fire time counselling system, industry institute partnership summit, 80-20 pattern that we have, 80 percent of the syllabus covered by the regular faculty, 20 percent by the corporates, the different events then support of the digital media the online programs the MOOCs, 20 to 40 percent is the digital media, the online courses that we have and more than 60 percent it is offline. So, these are the various things that we do, international conferences, national conferences, IMED gems i.e. inter class competition. We have expressions where we give an opportunity to the student not only from IMED, we give opportunities from 40 to 50 colleges across India to unfold their hidden qualities. Best manager, best entrepreneur, Elocutions, there are so many events that we organize and what I believe in is, we being the teachers we have to ensure that the students are exposed to fine aspects of management, holistic development of the students is very important, their physical features their mental faculties their mannerisms, their etiquettes all are very important. We want the students to be best citizens, very good citizens of this country. They should be proud of their country, their organization, their parents and I want these students to be very honest, committed and with lot of integrity and this is our focus and accordingly we are shaping and reshaping and organizing various events. What should be the criteria or what assessment a student should do before finalizing any admission in any institute?   What I would say is the very important thing for any student is not just the package the institute gives, generally what happens the students are looking for the placements, what is the highest package, they directly come and ask also what I feel the students need to be knowledge oriented not just the exam or placement oriented. The students will have to see, they have to find out who are the alumni, who are the alumnus of this particular institution what they are, what contributions are they making to the society, what kind of faculty they have, what is the curriculum and overall culture in the organization. What matters is the culture in that organization, whether it is society oriented or it is commercial and frankly speaking Bharati Vidyapeeth is social organization where we see the interest of every stakeholder in the society so they should look for the institutions where better citizens are prepared, where proud feeling is developed, where they think global, but act local. When we witness the forum and conclaves like this where we see the exhibition also where ed-tech companies, start-ups and MNC’s are displaying the product and services lots of academicians and educators and even the government involvement, how does it overall help?  Greatly helps, I interacted with SAS people, I interacted with Coursera, I interacted with many directors, the corporates it really helps because there are many things that are happening in the world unless we join such a network unless we attend participate in such panel discussions we will not know what’s happening around the world. We are the students and we should keep learning what was there yesterday is not today and it will not be tomorrow. The test preferences are changing technology is changing now today it’s all digital but to what extents we should go digital that’s again an important question. So, we have to have an excellent balance and such forums are very important after two years I think this is the first offline forum where vice chancellors, the corporates, the directors, the deans have been invited and excellent, I would say the session that I attended just now, excellent speakers, your choice is really good they have the experience to speak about, it was really great. Any message would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? Yeah definitely you have been doing great, I can see that one question everybody has to ask to himself and the organization, is my organization growing or growing old, am I growing or I am growing old and I must say your organization, ArdorComm Media is growing, not growing old it is growing and it has a great future. The way networking has been done today, if you have a good network you have an excellent net worth.  

“Technological tools today are going to be outdated tomorrow and therefore you have to update always with the changing technology,” says Prof. (Dr.) G K Shirude, Vice Chancellor, Sri Balaji University, Pune in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune Welcome you in today’s forum, what are your takeaways from the summit? Yeah, very nice to be here with you, your name itself is Chandan Anand so on one hand there is a Chandan that is sandalwood on the other hand there is Anand means happiness and this fragrance take place only when our learners are well skilled and that skills comes from not the traditional way but transformational digital way. This digitalization process which we are accommodating with those who are making a very excellent contribution in digital process and that is one of which we have experienced is that of Coursera courses and these courses we found at Sri Balaji University Pune are useful, students are also getting advantage of it. Sometimes it is difficult but Balaji university always welcomes the difficulties and we accept the challenges and we make the best of the best solution to solve these particular problems. How does the such kind of forums help where we have exhibition from the corporate and side-by-side conference also going on where the entire industry is uniting? See after all it is the society which is a combination of all these particular stakeholders and whenever these stakeholders are coming together with their merits with their limitations then certainly to discuss to discourse and to have a dialogue that will certainly give us a future road or future map how to proceed further. Any message for ArdorComm Media? One thing which is very common and which you have to be at your steps and that is learning never ends. Technological tools today is going to be outdated tomorrow and therefore you have to update always with the changing technology with the alpha generation which is coming now and this alpha generation will have a super brains and they will work more about the devices, tools, technology and how it is going to save their time, save their money and give a best possible output as far as the future entrepreneurs are concerned or getting a best possible jobs in the multinationals or the renowned companies in the world.  

“The Gross Enrolment Ratio of our country will go up, suddenly it will increase may be more than 50 percent and when the educated people will increase definitely final result of this, the GDP ratio will go up,” says Dr Eknath B Khedkar, Vice President, Ajeenkya D Y Patil University, Pune in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune Myself Dr Eknath B Khedkar, Vice President, Ajeenkya D Y Patil University as well as Vice President of Decision Sciences Institute Houston USA, again I’m also Vice President of one International Association of Asia pacific and middle east, International Society for Data Science and Innovation. We have established this association in 42 countries the head office is at IIM Nagpur. Now I would like to first congratulate Chandan Anand that he has organized this particular conclave very systematically. I appreciate his effort that he has done in Maharashtra particularly in Pune by calling number of industry experts industry people and academician, Vice Chancellor, the management people. Because of such types of event this is very very important for a timely because after the pandemic situation now I think this is the first event which he has organized when the industry people meet academia or university and university people meet industry. Definitely what is the requirement and need of the industry for a day, the university can fulfil, industry also see that what is the requirement from the industry side. Academia always want that student should be employed then how to make employable, what is the requirement such types of definitely event give a very high-level knowledge to all of us this is one thing. Second thing the topic which he has chosen about phygital university or digital universities government of India is bringing in the country and this is a need because of this pandemic situation and in hereafter also when the world is going to a digitalization everywhere education 4.0 is already started at European and American countries whereas the Asian countries part India is little bit lacking. But now the government of India has taken a very correct decision to go for a digital university and it will take some time maybe another four or five year these university will get developed few university will get developed and because of this, the gross enrolment ratio of our country will go up suddenly it will increase may be more than 50 percent and when the educated people will increase definitely final result of this, the GDP ratio will go up. There will be a number of small and medium scale industries MSME will come up because there our honourable prime minister saying, there is a need of Atma Nirbhar Bharat and this is possible only when we educate our younger people. For educating more young people we don’t have more universities we don’t have more colleges then how to do it, digital university is one of the part where maximum number I feel that say 50 percent to 60 percent student will be educated through the traditional university and remaining 50 to 40 percent student will be educated through digital university and the enrolment ratio will go up and another important point in national education policy 2020 government has announced that the student can take two degree at a time this is amazing and good decision by the government. What will happen, student will get a knowledge in different field therefore student can go for starting their business, a student can go for doing various types of multi-level jobs. This is very important moves like person like me even at this particular age also I feel that I should go for collecting some degrees I should go for taking some knowledge through digital university online while working. Therefore working people they will go for taking some degrees, people who are in village area rural area they don’t have money they can also join with this because government is making lot of facilities in rural areas as far as the infrastructure and bandwidth is concerned and therefore I think this is very very important event you have organized and you know the flagship is there in this area automatically the academician also come to know that what is the requirement for developing this digital university. Three important things are there we have to go first for development of digital infrastructure very very important it will take some time, second teacher training very very necessary teacher training number of teachers we have to train through this and last part curriculum development, content development when we go for these three things I think a lot of development will come. I would like to give the best wishes because of all this development in another four five years our GDP will go up and the country will go in 100 percent developing stage in another 10 to 15 years’ time.  

“Now we would like to go into the domain of artificial intelligence, big data and so many other new things” says Prof Dr M M Salunkhe, Vice Chancellor, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune Bharati Vidyapeeth is one of the institutions who has classes from KG to PG, how has the institute diversified under your leadership? In case of Bharati Vidyapeeth it is already a multidisciplinary, multi-campus university. As per new education policy everybody expected to have medical, engineering, agriculture, pharmacy all the courses on one campus. We have already all the programs in one campus under the umbrella of Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University. But in addition to this we have three specialized research institutes and you have specifically questioned how we are trying to diversify. Now we would like to go into the domain of artificial intelligence, big data and so many other new things. Even we have gone to the physiotherapy, it is a school, now we would like to establish another ayurvedic college at Kolhapur, already hospital has been started and we are diversifying. We are also planning to set up another campus at Sonipat in New Delhi. I would like to understand how does this kind of forum, conclaves help where you have conferences going on there is an expo area and involvement of government also? See one thing is very clear, universities are always discussing about industry academia interaction and it is lacking and I’m very happy I congratulate you for organizing this particular event in which industry and academia they are coming together they are discussing about their problems their association and so many things and so it is a good initiative. I have read one paper in some international journal where they have calculated the indices where industry academy interaction and they have shown a tripod and when the tripod is balanced then only the academic activity is better but I’m very happy with such type of interaction. There is a lacuna in our system regarding industry academy interaction that will improve and definitely I’m looking forward. In future ed-tech companies will collaborate with universities and will try to train students in better way. What will be your message to the next generation learners? I was a vice chancellor of different universities, I worked in central university, state university as well as open university and I was very happy and I was very curious because as an open university vice chancellor we used to discuss a lot about digital university and along with MKCL we have prepared some documents about digital university and today we have specific station on this particular concept and all ed tech companies they are enthusiastic about this particular concept and already we could start this particular online education when I was vice chancellor of Shivaji University then we started distance but online programs we have started at YCMU and being a ‘A’ category university we have started also online programs at Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University and we have very good response we have more than 6000 students and now we should dream for digital university and that is the next generation learners should be digital learners otherwise they can’t survive in this particular scenario.

I would call this as new order of education because we all are tired of the concept of rote learning says Dr Apoorva Palkar, Director- Innovation & Incubation Linkage, Savitribai Phule Pune University in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETPune What is the motto of setting up an Innovation & Incubation Linkage at SPPU under your leadership? It has been a great pleasure in leading this initiative in a 73-year-old university and this is a start-up in a 73-year-old organization. Building everything from scratch, from zero and bringing it to a level where we now have about 340 colleges, where we have setup the start-up innovation cells. We are building a culture of innovation in the grassroot which is through the colleges and the students. Along with that we are also trying to spot innovators from the open market. We are also trying to reach out to people from the government to find out where are the problems and what is the kind of solution that the market today is looking at. So, this is kind of trying to build in the capacity for people to have originality of thinking, that’s the outline or underlined motto for us. According to you how much should we rate to the innovation and skill development apart from the regular studies in the regularized curriculum of institutions? I think what we are building here is a new order of education. I would call this as new order of education because we all are tired of the concept of rote learning. Everyone is talking about how can we get away from the rote learning, where everything is governed by marks and at the end of the day placements. This is what the innovation cell is trying to do and build up in the college ecosystem, how we make people think, how do we make faculties think and how do we get them away from a cut paste model. So that’s what we are trying to do through all our initiatives. We are happy to see and spot more than ten thousand ideas under the University of Pune and there are a lot of people who are coming forward to also reward them. Its just not about recognition of an idea but how do we commercialize this is also very important. On one side people say that you need to be creating job givers but how will the job givers be created unless you have an ecosystem that helps entrepreneurs to kind of build the companies. So, this is what we are trying to do in short.