Projects, Community Learning, Corporates, Students
I have mentioned this in one of my earlier articles, and this is relevant again for this article so I will highlight this again. I have been terribly inspired by the New Age of Innovation by C.K. Prahlad and the whole concept of R=G where he indicates that the key to successful business models of the future will depend on how organizations can leverage a Global Resource Pool rather than focus on only internal resources. Well pretty much every organization would love to have access to a Global Resource Pool, but this is easier said than done but again not entirely impossible. Lets talk about this in the context of Education.
When we look at Educational setups in India it is pretty clear that with the stretched resource situation today and the growing demands on the Educational systems in the future it is very unlikely that things can get any better in terms of availability of quality education. We will hopefully continue to see increasing Government investment in Education and also significant Private involvement as well but it is clear that we really need to look at multiple solutions given the enormity of the problem.
Can we look at R=G for Higher Education?
While all the investment in upgrading the quality of education through the training of teachers, improving facilities and resources available in institutes are critical we also need to look at fundamentally different solutions like tapping into external resources. The question in front of us is Do our Education Institutes have a Global Resource Pool to tap into ? I do think yes and they are right in front of us. I believe that Industry is clearly the R=G solution for the Educational institutes of today and Educational Institutes of the future need to figure out models which allows them to tap into the Industry and utilize Industry as an extended resource pool for addressing the resource crunch. There are really significant benefits in doing this, using an external on-demand resource pool from the Industry would help institutes scale significantly at the same time maintain quality. Also a tight collaboration with the Industry automatically addresses the need to ensure parity between what is being taught in colleges and what is required by the Industry. Industry is already a key beneficiary of being involved in the process since it allows the Industry in turn influence the quality of education in colleges and resultant trained professionals entering the industry.
What are the potential Models?
Today most of the collaboration happens in the form of Guest Faculty from the Industry, which however is a very ad-hoc and rather discrete form of collaboration. This really does not address the problem and instead just turns out to be a quick fix solution for a single course in a calender year. A more holistic approach needs to be looked at and this needs some real brainstorming from both sides.
