‘We aim to create great citizens of India’

What are the major challenges faced by the Indian education sector?

India is the most populous country on earth and the population is young. More than half the population of India is under the age of 25. As the younger population comes to college, there need to be universities to cater to this increase in demand, both for the student and society.  This is our greatest challenge and also a wonderful opportunity.

The Indian economy was liberalised in the early 1990s. While the early years were difficult, once the Indian economy adapted, there have been numerous examples of Indian business that have become global case studies in their respective areas of activity. For Indian education to figure in the list of the world’s best, the sector needs a similar deregulation. To meet demand, the service provider has to be agile, flexible and adaptive to meet the needs of society and the student. When I refer to society, I refer to industry, community, entrepreneurship, family businesses, the government, the country and, indeed, the world.

The New Education Policy and other government announcements have articulated this. These are good guidelines and they point to a direction that higher education should move towards.  But they should be taken as a minimum. We have to move beyond and ahead. The government of India recognises this. This challenge can quickly be converted into an opportunity.

Do you think there is a mismatch between education and employment opportunities in India?

Being prepared for being gainfully employed is an important role of education institutions. All students must be prepared to be ready for the immediate present, and also the ever-changing and unpredictable future.  Who could have predicted the advances in the sciences that we have been seeing every decade?  For students to be relevant, they have to participate in the creation of new technologies and their use – and also to keep changing with time so that they continue to be relevant and continue to create value for the organisations that they serve.

But real education is more than that. Swami Vivekananda had said, that: “We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.” In the current time that we live in, we see the focus is only on vocation and earning.  It is important for education to be able to teach and prepare the student to be financially independent, but this is not enough. Education must also be that which expands the mind of the student and builds character. At Somaiya Vidyavihar University, we are working on a curriculum and an experience that exposes the student to a wide variety of thoughts that will expand their horizons and cultivate character.

How do you plan to expand the existing academic infrastructure of Somaiya Vidyavihar University over the next few years?

We aim to create great citizens of India and the world.  Our founder, Padmabhushan Karamshi Jethabhai founded Somaiya Vidyavihar with the motto: ‘Knowledge alone liberates’. We aim to provide learning that is experiential and theoretical. We strive to create an appreciation of languages, our aesthetic arts, sport, nature, entrepreneurship, discovery and spirituality.

We aim to provide the best teaching faculty and education infrastructure.  We want our students to have access to research laboratories, libraries (physical and digital), teachers and research projects, the ability to participate in global team competitions, sports, service projects and exposure to nature and diversity. We are located in Mumbai, the financial heartbeat of the fourth largest economy in the world.  Mumbai has Dalal Street, Bollywood.  Imagine adding Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Kashi and Shanti Niketan. Bring learning at the interface of discovery, innovation, science, entrepreneurship, finance, art, humanities, performing arts, film-making, humanities and spirituality.  This is what we are working on to make a reality.

None of this would have been possible without the vision of our founder and later his son Shantilal Somaiya.  We have a large campus in Mumbai, where we are building this Vidyavihar as was his vision.  It is a green oasis in Mumbai and we strive to keep it beautiful.  In this, we have created academic faculties that teach Engineering, Management, Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Basic and Applied Sciences, Languages, Music and Performing Arts, Dharma Studies, Film, Fine Art, Sport, and other subjects. We have built a business incubator by the name Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratory, where students can incubate their ideas. We have also built huge spaces for sports-related activities. We are now planning and building a new space of 100,000 sq ft for the incubator, 100,000 sq ft for our research laboratories, 100,000 sq ft for the K J Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies and 50,000 sq ft for our new Shantilal K Somaiya School of Art.

We will continue to build infrastructure and attract teaching and research talent to build a world class teaching and research University.  We have applied to the government of Maharashtra to allow us to expand our campus to our sister location on the Somaiya Ayurvihar campus at Chunabhatti in Mumbai.  This will further enable us to expand our offerings in Space science, Chemical engineering, and others. We will build an institution that is proudly Indian, global in the reach of its ideas and universal in its service.

What are the ongoing CSR initiatives of Somaiya Vidyavihar University?

My grandfather always believed in giving back.  He had said that we must always give back to society. As a result, under the larger Somaiya Umbrella comprising Somaiya Vidyavihar and its sister trusts, we are running schools in rural India.  These are in rural Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh catering to tribal, forest, factory, and farming communities. 

There is always an opportunity to learn in everything we do.  For example, we are working with farming communities in North Karnataka.  The aim is to explore, understand, and research regenerative agriculture to see how it helps mitigate climate change, improve soil health, farm incomes and the rural economy.  By doing this, research students and interns learn and help these communities.

Similarly, under Somaiya Kala Vidya, we are working with artisans in Kutch and Karnataka.  The aim is to make them artisan designers so that they can stand proudly on their own feet.  When students from Somaiya Vidyavihar University work with students of Somaiya Kala Vidya, they learn from one another, appreciate the traditional and the modern, and evolve new designs for the future. Somaiya Vidyavihar University, under our initiative, has been providing young artists with an opportunity to showcase their work and learn from the best. We have to preserve our built, written, woven and natural heritage.  We have digitised manuscripts, restored old homes in Kutch and converted them to village libraries. Our students from the K J Somaiya School of Education are helping develop a reading programme in these villages. Our medical and nursing students are working in Dahanu along with the Varli communities though a Rural Health Training Centre. Our Somaiya Sports Academy is creating world-class facilities in rural Maharashtra near Shirdi and also in Kutch.

How do you think Artificial Intelligence will transform the Indian education sector?

AI is a powerful and emerging tool that is going to change the way we approach our daily lives.  What has changed is the tremendous computing power that is being used to enable systems to deliver insights and perform tasks that we would otherwise take a long time to do ourselves. Education institutions have to teach AI and Data Systems. We have to research their continuing evolution and application. Help students understand how to make their learning more powerful with the use of AI, while at the same time not becoming cognitively weak themselves. An example of integrating AI into applications is that our students and faculty have developed Apps for the Mumbai Police – Eastern Region based on AI. It helps the police know the probability of specific crimes happening in a particular locality and time.