Few centuries ago, India was called ‘Vishwaguru’ The expression Vishwaguru is a Sanskrit phrase which translates as global teacher, the Guru of World. Prime Minister Narendra Modi uses the phrase in all his speeches globally during his visits to foreign countries such as Germany, Denmark and France, Italy, UK, Japan etc. The Prime Minister expects positive effects in terms of advancing ‘Make in India’ initiatives, free trade agreement discussions, and making India’s positioning in world stronger.

So why does Narendra Modi keep calling India Vishwa Guru? Education in the Indian subcontinent began with teaching of traditional elements such as Indian religions, Indian mathematics, Indian logic at early Hindu and Buddhist centres of learning such as ancient Takshashila (in modern-day Pakistan) and Nalanda (Bihar, India) where those days 10,000-15,000 students studied and most came from other countries.

Travellers from various regions having different climates and cultures began to visit parts of India from early times. To them, India was a land of wonder! The fame of Indian culture, wealth, religions, philosophies, art, architecture, as well as its educational practices had spread far and wide. The education system of ancient times was regarded as a source for the knowledge, traditions and practices that guided and encouraged humanity.

From the time of Rigveda, our ancient education system evolved over the period and focused on the holistic development of the individual by taking care of both the inner and the outer self. The ancient system of education was the education of the Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads and Dharmasutras. Some of the great scholars such as Aryabhata and Baudhayan (mathematicians) Panini (philosopher and grammarian) Katyayana (mathematician and grammarian) Patanjali (Yoga), Charaka and Sushruta (medicine and surgery) and many more scholars had made ancient India in true sense Vishwa Guru. 

To add to it, ancient South Indian temples to the finest Mughal ruins, Indian architecture is as old as civilization itself. The earliest traces of recognizable building activity in India can be traced back to the settlements of the Indus Valley. India is home to a myriad of temples, ornamental, and modernistic structures that tell the stories of their era. UNESCO lists 830 World Heritage Sites consists of 40 Indian heritage sites.

Becoming a Vishwaguru again is a sentiment of the present Government’s ambition and there is nothing wrong about it. To rub it off or to believe that India is incapable of pursuing this aspiration is an injustice to our past, present and future too. From our traditional occupation of agricultural to advancements in nuclear and space technology, from ensuring affordable healthcare to setting up world-class educational institutions, from ayurveda to biotechnology, from giant steel plants to becoming an IT power and having the third-biggest start-up ecosystem in the world, what we have achieved in our post-Independence journey is highly creditable.

Our ancient civilisational culture has provided us with a strong philosophical foundation that has several unique features. Our strong spiritual foundation cannot be unwiped. Back in the 17th century, India, a key player in the world economy, was a leading exporter of spices, sugar, textiles, handicrafts, and much more. It was also one of the first countries to adopt a money-based trade.

Education is the most powerful tool to change mindset from an older setting to new one. It has the power to change the way people think and execute. Progressive nations in the world invest in education of teachers and youth to empower a new generation of leaders. Nelson Mandela said that ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ Education is not all about studying to get good marks. It is a medium to discover new things. It helps us understand new concepts; new skills, new meaning, and new vocabulary thus increase our awareness. An educated person has the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. It is the most primary responsibility of a society to educate its citizens.

Our county’s education system needs to be remodelled as per the necessities and ambitions of today’s world, instead of taking it back to the old ages. However, in India the education system has evolved in a completely different manner. Our education emphasizes on rote learning. We don’t train young minds to focus on critical thinking, expressing new ideas and debating and writing critically on any issue. We don’t emphasize on entrepreneurship, instead we motivate students to become clerks with basic understanding of the language and mathematics, to support their administrative system. Today our education system has tuned into only cramming degrees.

We lag behind in the research domain. Our universities and colleges lack a multi-disciplinary approach to stimulate inquiring skills among students. Our education system has failed to develop industry linkages with academia to promote research, it limits the faculty and students to work in this area.

We give too much importance to marks; instead of focusing the evaluation on a three-hour exam, the focus of evaluation should be classroom participation by a student, live projects conducted by them, communication skills and leadership skills and extra-curricular activities. Teachers play the most important role in schools and colleges. They should be given the best of class training. After all, they are shaping the future of the nation, the children.

I conclude my article by saying education is most important for mental, physical and spiritual democracy. India must regain its intellectual leadership and once again emerge as a global hub of learning and innovation. It is possible and it is the destiny of India. And, to do this, we need strong will of the Government, Universities and Industry. Alongside the change in curriculum, businesses have an increasingly key role to play in providing extracurricular support for education. The initial role of universities is to provide education to individuals and basic research. It’s like a Linear Model of Innovations; universities are supposed to provide the research on which industry builds commercial goods. The other interactions take place through the involvement of industry managers and university faculty in both sectors. A university flourishes because of research, and industry grows on research in universities.

We need universities with a core mission of producing the educated population that’s needed to build, run and work for flourishing an economy. Today in India how many universities have been able to connect their activities to society and the nation’s economy? Hope the present Government takes keen interest in regaining the ‘Vishwaguru’ title back for the nation.

Writing or scripting a syllabus presents some challenges.  On the one hand, as the first communication with the students, the syllabus needs to convey the excitement and interest of the course, and give the students a sense of how this course will transform them and why they might want to take it.  On the other hand is poses great threat if it is not covered in experiential manner in the higher education.

The syllabus plays a vital role in both learning and teaching. It ensures a fair and impartial understanding between the instructor and students; it also defines policies relating to the course. Policies such as what students would be learning in a course, code of conduct, assessment parameters, books to be referred, pedagogy etc. In short, it provides a roadmap of course.

Both syllabus and curriculum are often confused. While, curriculum is a focus of study, consisting of various courses all designed to reach a particular proficiency or qualification, a syllabus usually contains specific information about the course. It’s an outline and summary of topics to be covered in a training course. It is descriptive often either set out by an exam board.

Human life, however varied, consists in the performance of specific activities.  Education is supposed to prepare us for life. It is suppose to prepare us positively and adequately for the specific activities we choose. The education that we take is required to strengthen us to go out into the world of affairs and help us survive the profession that we choose. And higher education should improve our abilities, aptitudes, habits, approaches and manners to cope in our professional lives. These objectives should govern the syllabus. The course coverage therefore should be definite and exclusive.  The syllabus should be one such that enables the students to have series of experiences sensitizations of the world of affairs.

The progress in higher education all over the world is set the thinkers and advocates considering the following facts about educational purposes the syllabus:

1.    What educational purposes a specific course should seek to attain?

2.   What educational experiences should be provided that is likely to attain these purposes?

3.   How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?

4.   How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?

Since the real purpose of higher education is not to have the instructor performs certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ views and sensitizing them to the professional world, it becomes important to recognize that any statements of objectives of the curriculum  should be a statement of changes to take place in the students. The syllabus should mention the learning edge; what one already knows and how the course will push the student beyond the realm.

Today, students who come to learn the higher and technical courses complain that the syllabus has not been covered scientifically; it has not guided them sufficiently; the objectives are not met up with; in short they are left and dry. Sad, today syllabuses are not learner-centered. They are teacher centered. We see lot of overlapping of subject matter, unwanted repetition, and sluggish treatments to the topics covered. This tires the student and teacher both.

A review of higher education literature reveals a growing interest in instruction using learning technologies. Have we evaluated the specific needs and questions of the participants?  There is growing mismatch between the new learning technologies and the teacher’s ability to cope with the technologies defeats the syllabus coverage. Many teachers are resistant or unable to use the learning technologies which results in failing the program.

The gap between industry’s needs and the academic community’s aspirations is becoming larger in other words this gap is widening every year. Compulsions of a global market are bound to force industry in general to look afresh at their innovative processes and efforts. This process must be guided by higher and technical education by a complete paradigm shift from a simple capital intensive trading to a technology driven entrepreneurial one. In today’s world technology is driving our lives. New technologies are certainly part of the changes which in turn have changed the processes. We cannot afford to be cocooned in our creations and drag them on for our lives; our higher educational processes hence would need swift changes one of them is changing the syllabus after regular intervals and second regular review of them.

Academic integrity and honesty are essential in the development of a professional education syllabus. The professional courses are generally excellent at teaching the numbers and analysis of risk with mathematical tools to evaluate the time value of money etc. They should prepare students to live with risk, balancing professional and personal life, fairness in life, that selling right is listening first, and solving people’s problems and empathies with them. Most importantly each higher education program should emphasize first on execution than only on making strategies.

Tips for effectiveness of syllabus:

• Communicate with articulation course learning outcomes.
• List major topics the course will cover.
• Provide a list of reading materials (briefly annotated).
• List textbooks, reference books, journals and magazines and other course materials and where to find them.
• List how the course would be graded course requirements such as assignments, exams, attendance, participation, etc.
• Provide a detailed schedule, weekly or daily. Include what will be covered, assignment and test dates, learning activities such as group work or presentations, guest speakers, field trips, library information sessions, etc.
• Consider using graphics, pictures etc as these give a friendlier approach.
• Last but not the least, keep a friendly tone, and let your syllabus not startle the students.