Why India needs new Art and Design curriculum

NEW DELHI: India produces around 5000 designs per year, but to satisfy the capacity of the indigenous creative industry, we need 65,000 designs annually, reads 'Future of design education in India' report by Anne Boddington, pro vice chancellor Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston School of Art (KSA), Kingston University, London, who is crafting an Arts and Design pedagogy for India. The report focussed on the 'standards in design' which has led the Indian Institute of Art and Design (IIAD), Delhi, to look at the possibility of launching four new programmes soon.

"Design and Art as a field is emerging in India. There is not only a huge opportunity but also a sense of enthusiasm and can-do-attitude in Indians for it. But to match-up to the emerging field , there is a need to train teachers first," said Anne.

She said, "Just because a person is a good professional, does not mean they can teach well too. A design teacher needs to make the student autonomous and increase their level of creativity and understanding." She has trained 12 Indian professionals so far at IIAD.

The Design and Art education, according to her , is not only limited to creative fields, but also extended to each and every field of education including the mainstream STEM fields. "A medical expert also needs critical communication skills to understand the patient. An engineer not only needs to build, but also design unique products," said Anne, who thinks critical listening, research, and quality assessment are part of the Design and Art curriculum.

Art and Design is a must for all learners, she adds. "Everyone is creative in their own way and the job of a university is to impart creative skills in all its students, which is not easy," said Anne.

She said that since the Art and Design education is emerging in India and is comparatively new, there is a great potential to create interdisciplinary programmes where creative skills will be imparted as a part of foundation courses.

"Having such interdisciplinary programmes right in Art and Design education can create a whole new field of opportunities and basis these opportunities we will create new programmes at our university back in the UK, in a reverse trend," she said. KSA is planning to set up joint research projects and students and faculty exchange programmes with the IIAD. The university is also planning to launch Social Innovative Design Centre at IIAD, which will be open to every design student or professional and would create designs which would have an impact on society.