Challenges of Higher education and Constructivism
Abstract
Education is the basic means for human development. At present, education is divided into Primary, Secondary, Higher and Specialized categories, in every society. Every level of education has its own importance. Higher education prepare us for the different fields of life. Higher education means an education which is of higher standard than the general education .India is well blessed with a vast enviable number of around 150 elite institutes and 665 plus state universities including the deemed and self financed universities along with 43000 colleges including 374 autonomous colleges. The elite institute include 103 institutes of national importance, so declared by the Parliament, including the IITs, NITs, AIIMs, IITs, IIMs etc., along with most liberal fiscal support and access to cream of the nations talent, being admitted through most fiercely contested entrance exams. India is a home to one fifth of the global youth and endowed one of the worlds largest higher education system. But India needs to take an urgent call for low employability and low innovativeness of its passing out graduates, as well as for low international ratings, whereby India is able to attract only 0.61% of international students. Besides, India has a very poor, 60th rank in the global innovation index (GII)and at 100th place in Global Hunger Index and at 131st place in the Human Development Index. Taking cognizance of such a poor state of education we can say that there is a need to improve quality of education. Todays reality of Higher Education demand focus on Constructivism. Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Each of us generates our own rules and mental models to accommodate new experiences. Constructivism is a theory of how the learner constructs knowledge from experience, which is unique to each individual. In this approach teacher is not a teacher but a facilitator because he facilitate the learning process by applying inquiry based learning method, cooperative learning and project based approaches.