| |9 December 2021HIGHERReviewDesign-centric education for multi-disciplinary learningWhile NEP (Section 11, para 11.2) argues that "assessment of educational approaches in undergraduate education that integrate the Humanities and Arts with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) have consistently showed positive learning outcomes, including increased creativity and innovation, critical thinking and higher-order thinking capacities.....", it does not throw much light on these approaches or different models of education. The one approach that is highly relevant to realize the vision of NEP ­ design education ­ is surprisingly not discussed in the NEP. While there are 31 references to the word "design or designed or redesigned" in the NEP, and a reference to design thinking as one among that many competing subjects to be taught, the NEP seems to have missed the significant role that design education can play in the implementation. The two key processes of design education ­ (a) creating an environment that nurtures curiosity and making aesthetics and creativity as integral to learning and not an afterthought, and (b) giving primacy to practice and value creation ­ are critical for effective implementation of NEP and evolve new models of education. The long foundation programs in design education focus on helping students unlearn the negative effects of schooling, and take ownership for self-directed learning, experimentation and risk taking. The focus on practice through a studio environment (unlike a lab or a research center) helps students and faculty to collaboratively learn and create industry and socially relevant innovation. It is through immersion in these two processes that design enables interdisciplinarity and tight integration between STEM and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Integrative structures for design-centric educationHowever, embracing design and developing design-centric education programs at undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD levels will not be easy. The key element in this transformation ­ faculty ­ is paradoxically both the enabler and the Achilles heel. Faculty will need lot of support to transition from a department focused and teaching-oriented model to a student-centric and interdisciplinary learning-oriented model. Institutions must develop integrative structures at institutional and program levels to encourage faculty to make this shift. Given the complexity of this task, it appears that single stream institutions with strong leadership may be better placed to evolve new models of design-centric education when compared to some of the well-established large institutions where design is treated as another department. Large institutions can look at similar experiments in other part of the world, notably the New Engineering Education Transformation (also called as NEET) initiative being undertaken at MIT. NEP must be the trigger to develop design-centric and blended models that integrate learning, innovating, and working at scale. National assessment frameworks like the Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievement may have to be tweaked to identify and nurture promising models that promote Atmanirbhar BharatThe two key processes of design education ­ (a) creating an environment that nurtures curiosity and making aesthetics and creativity as integral to learning and not an afterthought, and (b) giving primacy to practice and value creation
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