The Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative needs a ‘Design in India’ push
The pandemic-induced online and hybrid modes of education have stressed out higher education institutions financially, more so the students in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Institutions offering education in the creative domain have struggled to create the required pedagogical infrastructure and in bridging the digital divide. A major expectation of these institutions, therefore, is redressal of this financial stress. Government support is required to create vital infrastructure and to finance the costs of additional training and skills development, as well as Ed-tech platforms. Given the disruption induced by technology (4th Industrial Revolution), any move to stimulate overall economic activity and create employment will have to involve design. The government’s ‘Make-in-India’ initiative needs to be coupled with a ‘Design-in-India’ push so people can create new products, devise business processes, and think about new ways of service delivery for society. This is a must so that we can build a more “skilled” and “employable” India because the fact remains that the design industry is today one of the major employers as all industry verticals are augmenting their design & innovation capacities. However, the importance of the design industry and education and its contribution to the GDP and nation building is hardly recognized. For this to happen, the Government needs to change its mindset and that of the populace. It can make a beginning by incorporating more creative learning into the secondary education curriculum and setting up a creative think-tank that challenges policy and re-writes the rules. Opening a role in the Cabinet for the creative industries would give a fillip to the sector. In South Korea they have formed a Ministry for Future, Sciences and Creativity. This underlines the important role that design plays there in transforming science into culture. I think in India too we need a similar initiative that can bring together science, technology and creativity; and create a cross-cutting strategy that enables gaming, the visual art industry, the industrial design sector, the music sector, the communication sector, and the creative-industrial areas that emerge from their hybridisation to be integrated into the consolidation of technological research with economic development. Design also opens the door to Research and Development, particularly for MSMEs which with their limited resources cannot include R&D in their business models.Investing in creative skills right from the primary education sector to higher education and professional training will result in widespread innovation. The value of design skills cannot be overemphasized in fuelling economic growth. This can be done by the government backing design education and making it affordable. Any serious effort to create employment opportunities needs to encourage creativity along with emphasis on the sciences. Look how a Metaverse is being imagined and created, opening a completely new universe of opportunities for game designers, producers, storytellers, data providers, analysts, spatial mappers, public health and safety experts besides teachers, coaches and leaders. The art and design world of the future would be making full use of present and future, augmented and virtual reality technologies. The education for this emerging new age also needs to be current with the demand. The government mission should be to make design, creativity and innovation as important to the school curriculum as math and English, strengthen higher education institutions in the field of design so that in the coming two decades we produce a whole new generation of home-grown companies and unicorns; and we are able to produce as many creative directors as financial directors. The Government, as it finalises the Union Budget, will do well to remember that the designers of today are the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
(The writer is Vice-Chancellor, World University of Design. The views expressed are personal.)