An interdisciplinary approach and a holistic understanding is a must for faculties across educational institutions, expressed Dr. Vijay Joshi, Senior Consultant, Department of Higher and Technical Education (DHTE), Government of Maharashtra. He was speaking at the faculty training workshop organised at Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics (GIPE), Pune.

Gokhale Institute in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and the Department of Higher and Technical Education (DHTE), Government of Maharashtra had organised a one-day faculty training workshop on the implementation of the ‘Aapale Prashna Aapale Vidnyan’ (APAV) (आपले प्रश्न आपले विज्ञान) program. This program is an initiative to inspire teachers to design interdisciplinary courses that also attempt to study local problems, and is in line with NEP 2020. The organisers are planning to conduct such training workshops across several institutes in Maharashtra. CEED (Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship and Development) at Gokhale Institute will be coming up with a program inspired by APAV, where students will be inspired to find solutions to local problems.

The main objective of this program is to assist the higher education institutions to align curriculum with the local development needs of the region. The workshop was organised by the efforts of Centre for Excellence in Entrepreneurship and Development (CEED) at Gokhale Institute. Faculties from institutions across Pune district attended this workshop.

Dr. Joshi, in his address, further added that the teachers have a huge responsibility because students trust them blindly sometimes. He also said that compartments of physics, commerce, etc. fields need to be removed for a holistic understanding. He noted that universities should aim for employability rather than merely employment because before going to the field it is important to know the reality and apply classroom teachings. “Students will not solve big problems immediately. They need to start small and go through a process of understanding problems, analysing data, coming up with potential solutions,” said Dr Joshi.

Prof. Kailas Bavale, Coordinator of Dhananjayrao Gadgil Research and Development Centre, (DGRD) Gokhale Institute emphasised on adoption of the interdisciplinary approach, especially by Science & Technology disciplines. He said, “One cannot thrive in isolation anymore. It is important to accumulate everyone's efforts to realise the dream of a Knowledge Village that would eventually be a part of a Knowledgeable Society, which is highlighted as the ultimate aim of the New Education Policy,” said Prof. Bavale.

Furthering the workshop, Dr. Gopal Chavan, Programme Manager IITB-UMA (Unnat Maharashtra Abhiyan) Team, presented on ‘Higher Education and Case Study Pedagogy’ and following this, Mr. Swapnil Ambure from IIT-B briefed about APAV Case Study course and its contents.

Dr. Chavan briefed about the APAV case study course covering course learning outcomes, course content and assessment criteria, how the support from the IITB-UMA team will be provided and what are the tasks for course coordinator, etc. Following this, Chirag MM and Rijyuta Kaabaadee, from IITB-UMA Team, took further the discussions on APAV Case Study. The discussion revolved around the key stakeholders, role of faculty members to mentor students, sanity checks on topic selection and objectives and basics of analysis and report writing.