In India, no significant changes and reforms have occurred in higher educational system over the past several years. Since many decades, the institutes/colleges/universities in India continue to provide the same master’s degree courses in Arts, Science, Social Science, Commerce, and Education faculties with innovations only in their updating and internal review. Thus, our curriculum lacks in flexibility and dynamism and our educational system fails to provide new courses with varying international trends and times. In contrast to this, private institutes and universities with multidisciplinary campuses that are forthcoming across the country are offering most modern and innovative programmes to students.

Demerits in our higher education system

Some of the problems related with our higher education system are inappropriate selection, firmness andparalysis of our course curriculum, implementation and evaluation of curriculum content, organization, and the significance of the curriculum to the requirement of our society. The present higher education system is illustrated by lack of initiative, innovation, independent constructive mindset, creative ideals, and skills.

Steps to improve the present education system

In order to make any significant progress in the education system, the government has to undertake many short-term and long-term planned approaches to changing the curriculum. Also, targets are to be fixed to reach the desired results. A core committee of professionals from various fields must be formed to share the tasks like design, identification, and restructuring of the curriculum provided at college level. This will make the courses problem-based, learner-centered and research-driven. Our higher education structure should aims at the student-oriented and practical curriculum reformation.

The curriculum should include the methods to help problem solving skill and self discovery of the learners. In the present scenario, the key aspects of the curriculum development in the higher education system need to be relevance and excellence. Moreover, the innovations of our higher education system should include open-ended systems, sustainability, emergence of educational policies and elastic curricula models, and inter-professional and inter-generational relationships.

Changes required in teaching-learning process

We need to change from a system that supports learning through memorization and theoretical explanation to the areas that require practical description. So, we should keep pace with quick technological developments in teaching-learning process. It requires modifying usual teaching methods and introducing new progresses in technology into the teaching-learning process. We must change from the usual teaching method to more interactive forms of learning and teaching by utilizing e-contents, audio-visual aids, e-learning objects, databases, etc. We should be very quick in accepting the latest technology in every field of our education system like devising syllabi, teaching, certification, evaluation methods, and automation. The responsibility of a teacher in the education system must change from knowledge disseminator to knowledge maker.

The present era needs greater diversification and innovation of our subjects at both college and university level. For many years, our universities and colleges offer the same courses with little possibility for future courses and newer specializations. Thus, more specializations are needed to provide in all existing subjects and faculties. Also, there is a need to introduce new subjects to provide a wider choice to the students so that they can emerge as specialists in any specific area.

New courses to be introduced

The universities should focus more on new courses like biomedical technology, industrial production, fashion technology, nanotechnology, microprocessor technology, nuclear science technology, embedded systems,  hotel management, polymer chemistry, textile chemistry, microbiology,  hydro-chemistry, electro-chemistry, petrochemistry, chemistry of natural products, geophysics, astrophysics, nuclear physics, particle physics, optical physics, phytopathology, phytochemistry, phytomedicine, economic botany, entomology, rural and urban management, paleontology, hospital management, education management, investment management, enterprise management, business law, e-commerce, entrepreneurship development, corporate tax planning, rural finance and credit, consumer protection, advertising, agricultural marketing, genetics, microbiology, international business, cell biology, biophysics and structural biology, molecular biology,  immunology, radiation biology, biostatistics, virology, environmental economics, political economy, privatization and deregulation, public policy and regulation, visual communications, resource economics, interior design, travel and tourism, etc.

It is stated in the report of the National Knowledge Commission that innovation is the main driver of growth which is based on knowledge inputs and quality assurance.  The commission has called for improvement of the present universities to make sure of the frequent curricular revisions, improving dependence on internal assessment, introduction of course credit systems, reforming governance and encouraging research of institutions. The main aims of the education system should be the need for a paradigm change from theoretical certification to a practical use of knowledge which is essential for talent growth and self employment. The stress must be on the varying needs of the society through dependence on the application and understanding of new pedagogies and rising technologies.

Innovative Instructional Methods

Modern instructional methods are growing in higher education and are necessary for the improvement of curriculum. These include inquiry, research on the learning process of students, discovery and problem-based learning, undergraduate research, mutual and cooperative learning in groups, academic-service learning, and instructional technology, etc. Other important instructional methods are lecture and small group discussions, active and collaborative learning, etc. A previous report states that about 90% of seniors voted in a national survey pointed out that they had involved in group work in class while studying in college.

The vital relationship between improvements in instructional methods and curricular reform are characterized by the reform efforts in mathematics, science, technology and engineering. The theory and lab sections in Physics workshop are integrated. Now, the class instruction is done through demonstrations and hand-on experiments which are completely relied on computers. The students are working in cooperative learning groups depended on the problem-solving, principles of discovery-based learning, etc. In the same way, students work in groups to solve problems, often using geometric visualization, problems related to the real-life world, and instructional technology. The study by National Science Foundation points out that the most significant innovations are in undergraduate research in which students work on research projects with faculty, and there is group effort among business, institutions, research labs, and industry to encourage student education. Evaluation studies are also used to develop courses and encourage the current process of curricular reform.