Time again for us to rethink and revisit our education system as we face the unprecedented disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As I keep saying our youth have been the most affected and higher education has been impacted in so many ways. REVA has no doubt aligned to online teaching and support and ensured learning was engaging; however, the greater challenge is yet to come. As the lockdown gets lifted in a phased manner, the onus of running education institutions and ensuring safety and security of students will reach an unprecedented high. This transition time will need all our synergies towards revisiting our value proposition and ensuring that we have the right strategies to deliver what we mean.
All these years we were accustomed to an age old system of running our institutions. But time has come for us to revisit these systems, our operating models will need a sea change. We will need to redefine some of our systems and policies. Physical classes may not be the only way to deliver what we promise. We need to recreate and co-create education. Our campuses took pride in being the one stop destination for all learning experience…time has come to make this experience and reconstruct this destination. A simple online offering may not be the answer to replace this experience of the student.
We need to understand the mind of the student, understand his perspective and accordingly realign our resources. Innovative ways of teaching, flexible credits, repackaging some of our courses is the need of the hour. A bigger challenge lies in changing the mindset of the faculty members. A higher level of self-management and discipline is required. At the same time, giving students an experiential learning is a must. Our partnerships with all our stakeholders has to be enhanced and endorsed further. Creating a network of people in our ecosystem where engagement of students in internships, experiential learning, visits to industries, building hands on experience and most of all building on great communication skills in our students will take priority.
In conclusion, there needs to be openness to adapt to the new paradigm shift, revisit our education system and encash this opportunity and turn challenges to solutions as we start planning for the academic cycle ahead
Dr P Shyama Raju
Chancellor
June 1, 2020
