Many years ago, I had the good fortune of nurturing some innovative experiments in school and college education that proved to be rewarding. What I have to say about those ideas have some relevance since the National Education Policy prescribes and encourages the use of innovative practices in education.
Let me recount the situation prevailing 22 years ago at the level of undergraduate mathematics. I was aware that the programmes for undergraduates—almost across the length and breadth of our land—had major deficiencies. For instance, at the Delhi University, there were several thousand undergraduates enrolled for a mathematics degree.
They were being taught as if each student was aiming to be Srinivasa Ramanujan. Yet, based on my accumulation of first-hand knowledge, less than 10 percent wanted to be professional mathematicians. A large number was interested in being gainfully employed, but were unaware as to how a mathematics degree could help them achieve that. Almost none knew that they could use the same subject to set up startups or to be employed by the corporate sector.
The upshot was that after unsuccessfully trying their hands at gaining jobs through competitive examinations, these students, to a large extent, would become dull school teachers as a last resort. These teachers would then teach mathematics in unimaginative ways since they had been taught in a similar fashion, with almost no relevance and connections to the real world.
I wanted to remedy the situation. To do that, I managed to gather some talented and motivated young faculty, who were just as unhappy as I was with the curriculum. We began to design a highly innovative programme in mathematical finance, and extensively consulted the banking and finance sector of the corporate world for it. The programme was created to blend high-end knowledge with innovative applications to the real world of finance. It involved working in groups that taught through real-world problem-solving.
The students spent a great deal working with some of India’s leading banks and corporate financial institutions. This was not part of the regular mathematics programme; it had to be taught in the afternoons and during vacation times, so that students could work and travel unfettered to Mumbai and other places. The two-year experiment was not recognised by any university, but the corporate world realised its enormous value. One of India’s leading banks used to often offer high-paying jobs to undergraduates of this programme within a year.
To this day, I regularly come across hundreds of those who benefited from it. They are spread all across India and abroad at some of the most prestigious institutions of the corporate world, and are remarkably successful. Almost all tell me that it was that innovative UG programme in mathematical finance that played a major role in their lives. Sadly, no university in India has ever tried to learn of that experiment, let alone replicate it.
Dinesh Singh
Former Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University; Adjunct Professor of Mathematics, University of Houston, US
Twitter: @DineshSinghEDU