Professor Bibek Banerjee began his academic career at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) where he spent nearly two decades as professor of marketing and economics, contributing to a wide range of academic arenas. At IIMA, he introduced and popularised the simulation methodology in his curriculum and was recognised for his significant contributions to learning. He chaired the marketing area; co-founded the Centre for Research in Retailing; and provided leadership to create and operationalise IIMA’s successful collaboration with Duke University’s Corporate Education Centre for customised Executive Education. Currently, he is the senior dean of Strategic Initiatives and Planning at the Ahmedabad University.

Q) What kind of universities does India need right now?

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Indian universities urgently need to bring the student back in the centre of its universe. Whenever we think of access, equity, quality, affordability and accountability in university education, the stakes of the students need to be positioned in the vertex of all strategic considerations. This interdisciplinary approach opens up opportunities for students to study a variety of subjects before homing in on the one they wish to major in. By way of breaking the cookie-cutter structure of existing disciplinary silos, liberal education makes it easy for students to understand and make connections across the multiplicity of specialised disciplines and acquire skillsets that help them solve complex problems effectively.

Interactive in-class discussions, studio and field experiences, open seminars and presentations, multimedia and hands-on creative assignments are some of the ways in which good universities are creating transformational student experiences. Indian universities must also be the window to the world for our young people, in providing them opportunities for international exposure.

Q) What are the major structural defects prevalent in Indian educational system?

India has grossly under-invested in education over the last 40 years, relative to its other strategic priorities. Also, we had a protectionist and conservative mindset governing education policy – that has kept Indian higher education to compete on equal footing with its global peers. By way of physical signs, we see reputable institutions besotted with decrepit facilities, negligible investment in Research &Development, laboratories where equipment sit idle.

In case of certain states, there are a lot of unfilled seats in institutions. The challenge therefore is to improve our gross enrolment ratio, while also ensuring that institutions created for providing higher education fully utilise the capacity created. And the only way out is to bring a 360 degree focus on quality in the ecosystem of higher education. We need to understand that higher education is a specialised ecosystem – it needs investments into specialised expertise and intellect, specialised scientific and managerial resources, and most importantly it needs autonomous and quality focused governance process that is free from any kind of interference.

Furthermore, India over the past several decades has seen vocationalisation of higher education. Most are structurally limited in their scientific and intellectual bandwidth for disruptive and cutting-edge research. We know that large problems and opportunities that face the world today (such as Climate Change, Terrorism, Livelihoods, etc) cannot be solved by any disciplinary silo. We need multiple lenses from relevant disciplines to intensely scrutinise and propose solutions to these complex issues.

Q) Which countries are doing the right things in terms of higher education?

Over centuries, prioritisation and strategic investment in scientific and academic excellence with a focus on research (coupled with underinvestment in India) have propelled the top international universities ahead of their Indian counterparts. However, not all foreign institutions provide uniformly superior quality of education – in fact quite a lot of the middle and lower ranked institutions operate as fronts for immigration dynamics, rather than education.

Destinations such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand have been popular for Indian students. In addition to academic creativity and cutting-edge research driven relevance in curriculum, the major value of the top US universities (especially in US) is their focus on the overall quality of student life.

Notably, there are a few superior alternatives in India emerging as viable ones to so-called “foreign education”. These progressive universities are offering holistic, inter-disciplinary, research-oriented education that is rooted in the context of 21st century. These universities often have collaborations with reputed foreign universities that help them offer curated international exposure to their students.

Q) What are the basic changes required to make higher education student centric?

The stodgy and canonised structure of traditional higher education institutions are faced with the debate today if university degrees have relevance in getting people out of poverty or improve overall quality of life. In effect universities need to find for themselves their existential ethos. Student-centric space need to be created to look at the what, why and how of higher education in general, and the programmes and their curriculum structure in particular.

Q) What role can a teacher play to ensure student-centric education?

The role of the faculty is paramount in this entire schema of guiding the students through this transformative phase. In today’s age of technology, the role of faculty has undergone a transformation. A faculty must not only understand their domain meaningfully, but also understand the learning style of each of his/her student. It is important for a professor in the 21st century to be a customiser, mentor and facilitator. It is important that rather than being the ‘sage on stage’, faculty members walk beside and guide their students along their individual paths of learning goals and outcomes in this diverse and fast-changing workplace environment.

Q) What inspired you to start this kind of initiative at Ahmedabad University?

Following my doctoral degree in the US, I had moved to IIM Ahmedabad, accepting a position in their faculty, where I spent nearly two decades. Over the latter half of my tenure, a group of us colleagues were discussing the blue print of a 21st century university that will meaningfully contribute to the challenges and opportunities of the country. It was clear to us that some of the radical and structural redesign of university education had to be led by relatively new players in the higher education space.

For instance, promoting an impact-oriented inter-disciplinary philosophy, developing critical and analytical thinking among students equipping them with 21st century skills, driving solution-oriented research, and jettisoning the sage-onstage teaching methods in favour of project-based collaborative methods. We recognised that the future of work in India, along with the globe, will undergo tectonic shifts in the wake of artificial intelligence and automation – and that our students need to be ready for it now, rather than to be surprised by it later. That blue print resonated with Ahmedabad Education Society (AES), and the University was established in 2009.