EDUREFORM Innovation Manager presents her research during International Conference

EDUREFORM Innovation Manager presents her research during 80th International Scientific Conference of the University of Latvia

Anushka’s research focused on how the education system of India has undergone tremendous changes in recent times due to the fourth industrial revolution and the changing demands of the labor market. She emphasized that earlier, the methods of teaching incorporated in the Indian education system were teacher-centric methods, where the teachers played an active role and the students played a passive role. This hardly gave a chance to the students to think and reflect upon the subject matter, which resulted in rote learning.

She emphasized it is important for the students to not only learn but to meaningfully understand and comprehend the concepts being taught. To tackle the changing demands of society, the Indian Government has introduced The National Education Policy of India which was launched on 29 July (2020). This policy focuses on 5 pillars, i.e., Affordability, Accessibility, Quality, Equity, and Accountability to ensure continual learning and the child’s holistic development.

Anushka’s research was descriptive in nature. The participants were asked questions about the mode of teaching they preferred, methods adopted by them to teach critical thinking, creative thinking and problem-solving in India, their views on the Indian Education System and whether the development of critical thinking, creative thinking and problem-solving is a part of their teaching-learning process.

Anushka presented her major findings and analysis in the form of graphs and frequency along with supporting studies. The major findings of the study revealed that teachers in recent times prefer the blended mode of teaching and research conducted by Ma and Lee (2021) says that blended learning outperformed pure online learning in enhancing students’ perceptions of attention, confidence, and satisfaction and also had a higher level of satisfaction perception compared to face-to-face learning.

The participants considered and adopted both the methods, i.e. teaching of course material as well as taking separate sessions to develop critical thinking, creative thinking and problem-solving in students and various researches support this finding.

The participants of the study suggested different methods such as Mnemonics, Infographics Seminar, group discussion, role play, Situation based questions, debate, mind mapping, role play, creative writing, Debates, Workshops, Webinars and Conferences to develop critical thinking, creative thinking and problem-solving. They suggested that teachers need to listen to their students, use technology and integrated methods to make learning fun!

Anushka mentioned that the NEP policy (2020) takes care of all the aspects mentioned in her study and focuses on principles such as recognizing, identifying, fostering the unique capabilities of each student, flexibility, no hard separations between arts and sciences, between curricular and extra-curricular activities, between vocational and academic streams, emphasis on conceptual understanding, development of creativity and critical thinking, life skills, extensive use of technology which will help the Indian Education system to achieve the goals.

Anushka emphasized that the implementation of the policy will take 10 years and that Indian society is ready to embrace the much-needed changes required.

Anushka’s major findings with supportive studies were appreciated by all and provided the European Universities with a unique perspective of the Indian Education System.

The participants and experts appreciated her study and provided her with insightful observations, you can click in the picture below to see the appreciative comments.

To read more about the University of Latvia and the Edumentorship program, check the press here.

Written By- Anushka