Holistic education is the way ahead: Kasturirangan

BENGALURU: It is often said that India produces very competent scientists and engineers, but they fall short of being great innovators. To address this, engineering institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will move towards a more holistic, multi-disciplinary education with more Arts and Humanities, said former ISRO chairman and head of the drafting committee on National Education Policy (NEP), K Kasturirangan, on Saturday.

Elaborating on the changes envisaged in the NEP, Kasturirangan said that all institutes will make efforts to incorporate more vocational subjects and soft skills. Arts and Humanities students too will learn more science, he pointed out, while speaking on the NEP-2020 at the Bengaluru Tech Summit. The audience included delegates from 25 countries. 

Emphasising on the importance of the knowledge of arts, crafts, architecture and aesthetics, as part of science and engineering education, Kasturirangan said many institutes are working to promote greater inter-disciplinary approach in graduate training and  scholarship. 

NEP focuses on mainstreaming Sanskrit, says Kasturirangan

Drawing on the idea of the late Steve Jobs’ concept of working with musicians and poets and artists, zooolgists and historians to design the Macintosh, Kasturirangan said that as a crucial step to lead india into the 21st century and the 4th industrial revolution, multidisciplinary education is central.

Laying emphasis on the promotion of Indian art and culture, he said language is a means to promote all well as preserve culture, and the education policy has addressed it by implementation of the three-language formula to promote multi-lingualism and recommending strong departments and programmes in Indian languages.

The policy recommends that more institutions of higher education and more programmes will use mother tongue or local language as the medium of instruction and also lays emphasis on mainstreaming Sanskrit, he noted. Sanskrit can be connected to other contemporary and relevant subjects such as Mathematics, Astronomy, Philosophy, Linguistics etc. A department of sanskrit needs to be established which conducts outstanding interdisciplinary work on Sanskrit and Sanskrit knowledge system, he felt.