The research led teaching is the demand of the hour, said Prof lakshminarayan Samavedham the Master of Residential College 4 at the National University of Singapore (NUS) while addressing the faculty members of all the four campuses of BITS Pilani through tele presence.
Prof lakshminarayan Samavedham was delivering his lecture under the faculty development programme undertaken by the quality assurance and assessment team of Mission 2015/ Vision 2020 of BITS Pilani.
In his address Prof lakshminarayan said the advent of MOOCs, Blended learning and other innovations had put higher education in the limelight. He also raised the question whether the teaching community was ready to cope up with the challenges and leverage on the available opportunities to prepare students for an uncertain and complex future that awaits themIJ While addressing this question he highlighted some of the general trends in Higher Education and described related teaching and learning initiatives taken at the National University of Singapore.
While elaborating upon the changing scenario in higher education world over he said that both employment opportunities and demographics had changed in recent times. Today only 18 per cent of American labor is now in manufacturing and construction; 2 per cent in agriculture; and other 80 per cent is in services where no goods are made.
There has been increase in life span and the decrease in birthrate and now people work in places with different cultures and habits. Hence could the higher education remain the sameIJ He also highlighted the fact that it was difficult to bring change because of the resistance to change in modes of instruction.