A Commentary on Inclusive Pedagogy in Indian Higher Education

Introduction

The Indian higher education system has been known to be a big giant in the global higher education discourse - primarily owing to the number of institutions. The role of this sector is inevitable to India’s economic growth, in particular of our youth’s employability skills (Tiwari and Ambrish, 2019). There has been a direct correlation between India’s GER and student enrolment ratio in higher education in India from 1950 to 2013. The failure to achieve India’s target growth in the Ninth five-year plan (1997-2002) projected at 6.5% to actual growth of 5.4% aided the government, and the private sector to take a step back and move the limelight of our priorities as a nation, from agriculture and rural development to the tool that can help us achieve social justice, quality, and inclusivity - education. Together, these priorities then became the key focus of the very historic 11th five-year plan of India (2017-2012). This plan focused on fixing one major gap - the rate of increase in our savings and investment rates and no marginal growth in the inclusion of social, economic, or other Indian minorities. For the education domain, this gap closure was important to bridge not only in order to create more employment opportunities for Indian graduates but also to understand the diverse learning needs and abilities of Indian students. Focusing in-depth on the 12th five-year plan for the purpose of this paper becomes crucial for two reasons. First, through the five, five-year plans from the 8th five-year plan to the 12th, the GOI is attempting to strengthen the higher education domain in the country by celebrating the different gender, social and economic elements that halt our student’s growth from the macro perspective. The authors aim to take this a step further and understand, from a micro lens that once a student makes it to the classroom, how is this classroom experience eliminating the differentiators in the learning journey of the student. Second, there is a very clear focus on skill enhancement across all age groups in order to bridge the employability gap in the 12th five-year plan. This paper attempts to understand if skill enhancement is a part of teaching and learning pedagogy in the Indian Higher education system, today and if not, how can we align these two to eventually support the mission of a more inclusive and wholesome experience for our students, first, inside the classroom but also after they leave the classroom, in the real world - this is essential to build skills that are transferable and sustainable in education.