The present education system focuses only on teaching and discounts the value of learning, feel experts. Balkrishna Rao, Chief Information Officer of Manipal Global Education Services, said, “Seeing, hearing and doing can lead to 90 per cent of learning. Today, there is only teaching in institutions, no learning. Innovation is when the projects written by students of colleges are implemented.”
He was part of a panel discussion on ‘Spurring on the Next Creative Evolution,’ organised by Adobe India. The panelists spoke about creativity in the context of promoting start-ups and businesses. They also touched upon innovation in all fields, including education.
Ravi Gururaj, Chairman of NASSCOM Product Council, said, “Our education system needs to become non-conformist. All children face the teacher in a classroom. Maybe they would learn more if they interacted more and faced each other. Our teaching faculty needs a change in their ways of thinking.”
Arundhati Nag, well-known theatre artist, spoke about performing arts, their contribution to society and why they must be preserved. “There is a big gap between our learning and the knowledge that exists in traditional cultures and their members. For example, our farmers have knowledge about agriculture. An accelerator is needed to bridge this wide gap,” she said.
In a survey conducted recently by Adobe, 69 per cent of Indian educators believed the current education system in the country was not geared towards fostering creativity. Eighty nine per cent felt that technology and digital tools play an important role in promoting creativity among students.