of education

Avalanches ahead

Indian Link caught up with Saad Rizvi, Director of Efficacy at Pearsons, London and author

Hasnain Zaheer (HZ): You have studied and worked in South Asia (in Pakistan) and in the western world. What are your key insights on how South Asian countries can improve higher education?

Saad Rizvi (SR): The avalanche presents a phenomenal opportunity to South Asian institutions to take advantage of the changes to rapidly evolve and leapfrog the traditional universities. To bring true and irreversible change, our higher education systems need to do (1) system reform - looking at the system across quality of teaching, and output such as graduation rates, comparing it to globally benchmarked best practices and then applying evidencebased interventions to raise the quality of the whole system; and (2) systemic innovation to create the conditions for the system to identify, support and ultimately scale and capture opportunities for disruptive innovation. Putting the two together will put our countries onto a journey of continuous improvement.

HZ: What is your message to people of sub-continent heritage - parents, students and professionals?

SR: My first message is to demand excellence from every institution. We are key clients of the higher education system and often invest savings accumulated over a lifetime

Aus-Asia links

Indian Link chatted to Pradeep Khanna, the organiser of Integrating Australia with Asia events into universities. You can’t be passive consumers anymore. Encourage change, ask for more and ensure you’re getting high value for money from every institution. The second message is to not be complacent. In today’s world, you can’t expect to go to a university and be guaranteed a job for the rest of your life. You need to continuously up-skill yourself whether it’s through formal or informal learning. You need to seek out opportunities to explore your interests and passions independently of the institution you go to. You need to find mentors and supporters who can guide you towards achieving your goals.

Hasnain Zaheer (HZ): What is your goal and philosophy behind the Global Mindset and Integrating Australia with Asia?

Pradeep Khanna (PK): Global Mindset is a thought leading consulting company focused on increasing services trade between Australia, India and other Asian countries. Integrating Australia with Asia (IAA) is its initiative to enhance links between Australian, Indian and other Asian entities.

HZ: What are the key high level insights from discussions, interviews and events engaging people from Australia and Asia, across disciplines?

PK: We are living in a world which is getting increasing flattened by globalisation and digitisation and new disruptive business models are emerging in every industry. We have to continuously re-invent ourselves as well as keep innovating to succeed in this environment.

HZ: What is your message to NRIs and other people of sub-continent heritage - parents, students and professionals?

PK: Future work in a globalised and digitised economy may necessitate changing careers 4 to 7 times in a lifetime. Lifelong learning will be the norm. We have the advantage of having familiarity and access to ecosystems both in Australia and India that we should use to excel in whatever we are doing.

HZ: What should today’s high school or university students do to ensure their education is relevant in tomorrow’s world?

SR: Seek out your interests and passions inside and outside universities and be entrepreneurial in how you capture them. If you’re interested in engineering for example, it’s not sufficient to just get a degree. You should reach out, work with and partner with the engineering firms around you. You should learn everything even outside of your university curriculum and discover ways of practicing it. In today’s world of online courses, blogs and YouTube, it’s increasingly easier to achieve that. Just getting a degree, even from a prestigious university, isn’t sufficient in the global marketplace for jobs anymore. You have to go the extra mile to prove your passions on the path to getting that dream job.