Dr. Sridhar graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 1989 with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. He went on to complete his PhD in Fluid Mechanics from the Johns Hopkins University, USA. A strong desire to do something for the country prompted him to return to India in 1998 after a 3-year stint as a Research Scientist at American Standard. In 1998, jointly founded by Dr Sridhar and Mrs Lalit Sridhar, Academic Centre for Excellence (ACE) came into existence with a vision to provide an effective and caring academic environment that nurtures original thinking and creates confident young individuals with a sense of responsibility towards society. Together, they pioneered board and competitive teaching in Karnataka through Deeksha.
The education sector has seen rapid changes in the wake of the pandemic, with schools and colleges finding different ways to adapt to the new situation. It has resulted in educational institutions across the world being compelled to suddenly harness and utilize the suite of available technological tools to create content for remote learning for students. Educators are experiencing new possibilities to do things differently with greater flexibility. This has resulted in potential benefits in accessibility to education for students. It has made all the educational institutions across the world adopt online teaching. These are new modes of instruction that have earlier been mostly untapped, particularly in the kindergarten to Grade 12.
We have been talking about virtual classrooms and various online tools that allow us to make the engagement between the teacher and students as close to a real, in classroom-type experience, which has become a reality now. To support this revolution, there will be a boom in creative ed-tech solutions and learning options for students and teachers alike in the coming years. The onus is on the education sector to investigate ways to make learning more student and teacher-friendly. Students will have access to different platforms or modes of learning, enhanced by technology and supported by an increased focus on life skills. The key to successful online learning is not the choice of tools, but the quality of the learning activities that students engage in using those tools. These steps will definitely help strengthen the country’s digital learning infrastructure in the long run.
There is no doubt that the coronavirus is going to be with us for a while, and specific precautionary measures are a must to support our way into the new future. As institutions are awaiting government policies to help academia function during this time, certain practices like social distancing within the buses and classes, maintaining one student per seat in the bus and conducting classes at 50% strength while alternating with online classes, an increased focus on hygiene and sanitization within the college premises are necessary.
In a way, the pandemic has revealed the ability of society to quickly evolve to challenges. It has triggered a much-needed digital revolution that will change the way students receive education in India and will result in a more integrated learning model. Post Covid-19 is an opportunity to transform the education system, and this opportunity should be utilized to the fullest to bring the necessary change.
More About Dr. Sridhar G and Deeksha
A visionary and a thought leader in education, he is amongst the most respected and value-oriented educationists in the country. Dr Sridhar loves to be amongst children, whether teaching them or playing with them. A fun-loving person, he makes sure to spend time with his own children at home, listen to music, engage in sport and go for leisurely walks!
In 2008, backed by Private Equity Investors, Ace Creative Learning Pvt Ltd was formed to take Deeksha to several more campuses across India. With almost 10,000 children graduating every year from more than 25 campuses, Deeksha is a now a respected name in the Intermediate segment.