The future of India depends on dependable citizens, who must be devoted to the cause of the betterment of India and the world of today and tomorrow. In today’s world, what society needs is those who wish to mould trustworthy and dependable human beings and create a futuristic knowledge economy. And for that, a revolutionary educational system is a must.
The present and future of such pathbreaking teaching and learning pedagogy are meta-digital. Distance learning is the only way to bridge the rural-urban and north-west-south-east divide. But what about the digital divide?
Don Bosco University, founded and cherished by an exemplar leader, Fr (Dr) Stephen Mavely, the Vice-Chancellor and Rector, is the answer.
Because when the Insights Success team asked Fr Mavely about the necessity for education institutes to align their offerings with technologies like AI and ML, he simply said, “There is no choice in this matter.”
And countering it, he said that the question, perhaps, should be ‘what is the role of education in a digital age characterized by the increasing deployment of Artificial Intelligence leading to potential mass technological unemployment?’
He was speaking for the edition of ‘Most Recommended Distance Learning Institutes of India.’
According to Fr Mavely, education faces multiple challenges in a future digital society. The digital university will see the rise of artificial intelligence, deep learning (machine learning), robotization, ‘and intelligent systems’ in manufacturing strategies to meet the needs of the ‘fourth industrial revolution, and more importantly, a convergence of technologies, leading to higher and deeper levels of the knowledge economy.
The Beginning of the Nobility
Fr (Dr) Stephen Mavely became the first Vice-Chancellor (President) of Assam Don Bosco University in 2008. While serving as the Principal of Don Bosco College, Guwahati, he was entrusted with the task of establishing the first Don Bosco University in India.
He played a pivotal role in the conceptualization and planning of the university and continues to steer its development as it seeks to create a unique niche among national and international institutions of higher education.
Formulating strategies, scouting for resources, working with a close-knit team, addressing their needs, and forging ahead with verve and passion are just a few of the tasks he handles with the finesse he is known for.
Prior to becoming the Founder Vice-Chancellor and Rector of Assam Don Bosco University, Fr. Mavely spent over 40 years devoted to the education of young men and women in North-East India – a mission to which he has dedicated his outstanding talents in a variety of fields: literature, media, psychology, communication, theology, management, pastoral work…
When the concept of accreditation was still in its infancy in much of India, during his tenure as the Principal of St Anthony’s College (Shillong), he won for the college the singular distinction of being the first to be accredited in Eastern India and the first to be awarded the highest ‘Five Star’ status by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India (NAAC).
Visualising the Portrait of a Dependable Graduate
Assam Don Bosco University (ADBU) was established as the first State University of Assam in the private sector on 29 March 2008. Don Bosco Society set it up in response to the felt educational needs of the people of North-East India.
In a little over ten years, Assam Don Bosco University has become one of the best Universities in the Northeast. It has the distinction of being the only private University in Assam with an ‘A’ Grade from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
The University has also been given a 12B status by the University Grants Commission, becoming the first private University to attain this status in North-East and the fourth in the country.
The university’s vision is ‘To mould young persons into intellectually competent, morally upright, socially committed and spiritually inspired citizens at the service of India and the world of today and tomorrow, by imparting holistic and personalized education.’
Guided by this vision and leveraging its century-old expertise in education in India and abroad, Don Bosco University continuously strives to be a centre of excellence in study and research focusing upon the following:
- Providing easier access to higher education for the underprivileged
- Harmonizing technical excellence with human and religious values
- Employment-oriented courses in emerging areas of contemporary technology and service
- ‘Teacher Education’ as a privileged area of interest to accelerate the pace, reach and quality of education
- Impetus to research initiatives with practical and social relevance
- Providing a forum for debate and research on critical human issues like religion and culture, peace and justice
- Contributing to the socioeconomic development of North-East India
- Boosting international linkages and collaboration in university education
Uprising through the Physically Severed Realities
As the lockdowns began to bite and disrupt lives, there were a few separate but connected realities that Fr Mavely, as the Vice-Chancellor of the university, kept facing in those early months of the national ‘lockdown’:
- There was this vast campus of 300 acres or so – suddenly silent except for the birds and the elephants, which had a field day. The students and the faculty, the soul of any university, were gone, each one shut up in their own little or big ‘boxed up existence’ scattered over the country.
- There were some 800 construction workers confined to their barracks on campus, with nowhere to go and no means to live by but what the university could provide them.
- There was this COVID Care Centre, set up by the government in the university’s biggest academic block catering to some 350 patients a day – quarantine, treatment, isolation, supply of meals, daily disposal of huge quantities of bio-medical waste for five straight months.
- There were the tea garden labourers and farm workers of the university from the nearby villages who were helpless, not allowed to come for work, but dependent on the university.
- Above all, there was this nagging, overwhelming conviction in Fr Mavely’s mind that ‘our students must come out winners right in the midst of the pandemic’.
It was a struggle to spare funds to keep the construction, tea garden, and farmworkers reasonably looked after. It strained the university’s resources, ate into most of its security deposits, delayed its construction activity, and severely limited its options to face prolonged risks and emergencies.
But it is a matter of tremendous satisfaction that the management at the university was able to rise to this challenge reasonably well. They also reached out to nearly 2000 families with provisions and medical help. In recognition of their efforts and contribution in the fight against COVID-19, they received an Appreciation Certificate and a Plaque from the Dept. of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Assam.
The biggest headache with the COVID Care Centre was the massive volume of bio-medical waste it kept churning out day after day.
Apart from that, the resentment some felt about bringing such a centre right in the middle of the campus turned to appreciation when they began to see the number of patients who benefitted during the five months it was in operation on campus.
The task to which they dedicated all their energies was to ensure their main concern – their students should come out unscathed academically and otherwise despite the pandemic.
Here, in India, the lockdown started in the last week of March 2020. Within a month, they had their faculty and students fully on board with their drive for taking all teaching, coaching and testing online. It was the graduating students (who had still four months to go when the pandemic struck) who took enthusiastically to this switch to online education.
They plunged into it because they had a time-tested platform, DBU Global, their Centre for Online and Distance Education (CODE), where they have over 5000 students from 118 countries.
It took a while to get their faculty on board; it did take longer to achieve the enthusiastic support of the students. But Fr Mavely says with a sense of pride that their faculty rose to the occasion most admirably.
Their students, despite initial setbacks and skepticism and lethargy (because most others were not doing it), beamed with pride when they were able to complete all teaching and examinations online and with virtual labs and hold their virtual Convocation on 5th October 2020, just three weeks later than normal years!
In recognition of the determination and resilience of the leadership at the university which resulted in a quick and smooth transition from on-campus to a fully online mode of teaching, learning at Assam Don Bosco University since March 2020, Fr (Dr) Stephen Mavely was awarded ‘New Code of Education Awards 2021’ under ‘Top Digital Enablers in Executive/Distance Education Category’ by Wheebox.
This award was adjudicated by Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE; Dr (Mrs) Pankaj Mittal, Secretary- General, Association of Indian Universities; and Dr Prem Singh, Member, Higher Education, NITI Aayog.
Father’s Advice to the Budding League of Future Educators
Fr Mavely says that India has over 1000 universities, out of which 361 are private universities. In view of this, for any entrepreneur aspiring to venture into the education space, there are a number of things they need to keep in mind. Establishing a higher educational institution that imparts quality education requires a strategic developmental plan and strong leadership.
A leader has to be a visionary who inspires others to share the vision and dreams while encouraging critical thinking and innovations. It is very important for the leader to possess the ability to create an environment where the team can work together as a family towards the same goal while giving each employee ample space to be creative, look to the future, find new solutions to old problems and be adaptive to changes. In addition, it is also essential to be able to provide an ethical work environment with clear values, priorities and standards.
Envisioning the Futuristic and Noble Knowledge-Economy
While translating their vision into action day in and out at the university, Fr Mavely feels that they are on a solid footing as they move forward into the future.
However, given the dynamics of changing scenario of higher education, they are also on the lookout for improvements in everything they do at the university. This year, they are focusing more on interdisciplinary learning by providing a flexible curriculum and choice-based credit system.
This will help them in producing students who are specialized in one discipline and at the same time possess a good amount of knowledge in other areas of expertise. In addition to this, they are training their teachers to adopt interdisciplinary teaching methods in the classroom to enable the students to come up with more coherent answers and viable solutions to problems and help them engage in significant learning.
Also, in line with the university’s vision, they have recently introduced a mandatory Service Learning Course for all the students in the university with a hope to imbibe in them a generous and kind heart that gives back to society.
