The importance of academic excellence in the making of a highly successful first-generation business entrepreneur is perhaps best personified by Dr Niranjan Hiranandani. Over the years, he has set up the Hiranandani Foundation School, successfully run the academic institutions of the HSNC Board – it is only in the fitness of things that his wish to go further and become an educationist comes true as Provost of the newly set up HSNC University in Mumbai.
The saying “Teach What You Preach” rightly guides us to enlighten the ones we influence by our practices than just words. This fits the most in a parent-child and teacher-student relationship as that’s where a novice learns the most.
The next–gen human capital is a rich breed brimming with curiosity, open mindness, technologically avid, and risk oriented. Today’s millennials are always on a lookout for new learnings, skilling and up-skilling their knowledge. They indulge into the multi–lateral learnings to hone their skill for staying industry relevant. The open access to global developments on their fingertips have made it imperative for their tutors be it a teacher or a parent or a mentor to stay updated with current know-hows in all fields of exposure. The additional role played by the preachers and teachers is of an ‘influencer’ that rightly guides and enlightens the young minds not just with their wisdom and experience but also aids with the right practices. In common parlance, we have become familiar with the term “up-skilling”. Imbibing the habit of up-skilling and re-skilling to enhance pre-existing knowledge base and nurture the right skill set, have become crucial for the individual’s growth in contemporary businesses. Because gone are the days when just a degree was enough to secure a job, and dedication was enough to keep it going. With cut-throat competition culture across the industries, up-skilling is now expected of every human talent in the corporate business world. In fact, up-skilling now plays a vital role in redefining the core competencies and epitomize the right attitude to learn and grow.
The new revolutionary era of competitive environment is brewing up across the industries and economies. The young Indian demographics will be very soon part of the ever challenging work force, where they need to comprehend right skill set through efficient training system. The mentors will have to re-incline their focal point on modes of learning and training to stay updated and ahead of the curve in such ever-evolving work ecosystem. To help students read the benefits of progressive pedagogies, they should be informed and alert about how to stay relevant and stay away from the obsolete methods.
An educator should indulge in quick thinking and intuitive applications, for this approach will ensure impromptu tackling of unprecedented scenarios. This shall be inculcated through consistently keeping updates of the news the industry that one envisages to amplify the scope in preferred forte. Additionally, a multi-field approach must be pursued to identify the difference in results for various methodologies and practices that stand a chance of overlapping when the components evolve with advanced research. While internet has become the most used channel to explore new ways of up-skilling, the mentors should also refer trial and error methods basis the concepts they have learnt as students. This helps in fine-tuning one’s own fundamentals and advocate the learner to trust key principles and fundaments rather than just merely repeating or using the rote learning technique. These are a few ways how a guru can persistently be updated and encourage the students to continue engaging with such novel learning-modules and keep their minds open to the paradigm shifts in modern education that embraces change and discards the outdated.
As the current world of ‘learning’ and ‘unlearning’ is synchronous with the changing times and the young generation knows what to embrace and what to discard for their own benefit and growth, one tries to be as synchronous as possible. With potential demand of relevant and multi-faceted versatile personalities, especially that is imbibed from the experience than bookish learning keeps the desire to stay ahead of the times. As mentors or guides, it is essential to be aware of the process and encourage the learner’s growth while constantly looking out for new opportunities that assist in inculcating advanced methodologies and ideations to upgrade from obsolete to progressive pedagogies. Such a strategy will continuously keep both mentor and mentee’s mind young and accessible to a spectrum of ideas.