Reimagining higher education: Ecosystem approach can revive enrollment in basic sciences

With an enrollment of more than 41 million students, India has been recognized as the world's second largest post-secondary education system (after China). In the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP), the Government of India projects to increase the enrollment rate to 50%, from its current 27.3%, by 2035. To achieve this goal, India will have to add around 34 million students to the system.
South India has been facing a decline in enrollment in Mathematics and Basic Sciences progressively. This can be perceived as due to emerging trends that view the tertiary education space from a utilitarian perspective. If such a notion persists, though, there would be closure of such programmes at many institutions.
However, admissions to Engineering programmes (having allied Mathematics as an integral part) in ranked institutions is still progressing well. This indicates that learning Mathematics in isolation as a major subject has been declining owing to the lack of an associated professional training component.
Starved of tuition revenue, universities and colleges are considering closing down departments. But, is there an alternative framework to reimagine the tertiary education space? Do colleges need to appropriate the perception of millennials concerning curriculum and pedagogical design, which would facilitate their enrollment?
Expectations of millennials
Doug Shapiro, the Executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center that curates data from the majority of the institutions in the U.S.A. stated in an interview that 'the longer this continues, the more it starts to build its own momentum as a cultural shift and not just a short-term effect of the pandemic disruptions. 'Students are questioning the value of college. They may be looking at friends who graduated last year or the year before who didn't go, and they seem to be doing fine. They're working; their wages are up.'
Millennials in general are inclined to pursue entrepreneurship rather than work for someone else. Secondly, value for money through return of investment is another key perception they have.
As per a study cited in a March 2024 article by Inside Higher Ed, it is observed that confidence in colleges is falling, and the perceived value of on-the-job training and shorter-term licensure or certificate programs is on the rise. Further, a survey conducted by the marketing research firm Edge Research and HCM Strategists, a public policy and advocacy consulting firm funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, noted that although 58% of high schoolers and 51% of non-enrolled adults in 2023 believed 'you must have a college degree to earn a 'good job,'' 69% and 65%, respectively, believed certification is enough.
To address this complex issue further, we require a whole-of-tertiary education vision and strategy through a systems-thinking approach rather than cherry-picking populist initiatives. We need to envisage new types of institutions with different missions, programmes and modes of study to meet the demands and needs of this diverse cohort of learners and of society.
Consequently, to evolve an institutional model from the perspective of reimagining the arts and Science colleges, we can draw insights from Neil J. Smelser's proposition (UC Berkeley) which describes the modern research university as a 'multi-campus network' of inter-related parts and relationships. It can be interpreted that the entire post-secondary landscape could be envisaged as an 'ecosystem' which offers various types of education including skill development leading to professional certification concerning upskilling and reskilling, adult education, continuing education or even lifelong learning, community engagement, and so on.
If the tertiary education space is rendered dynamic in design through an ecosystem model by connecting it with the world of work through an interface in the academic institution, it would perpetuate itself by adapting to the changing context. The ecosystem, as a dynamic space, could be envisaged as a system where the number, type, role and responsibilities of providers, individually and collectively, evolve and modify over time in response to the changing environment.
Though the ecosystem providers are diversified, flexible and responsive with distinct missions towards societal and economic changes, there would not be an imbedded hierarchy. An ecosystem approach of tertiary education space will keep co-creating the curriculum and pedagogy as it will be constantly communicating and receiving feedback through community and industry engagement.
A real-world application
The Madras Christian College has embarked on validating this model through the MCC-MRF Innovation Park, where apart from incubating entrepreneurs as its core vision, the innovation park would also focus on creating centers of excellence in domains mapped with programmes offered on the campus. The proposed Centers of Excellence will keep updating themselves with changes happening in the world of work and creating skilled work forces through upskilling and reskilling. In addition to this, hackathons will be conducted periodically curating pain points from industries and involving interns from the campus.
The departments within the college, through their association with the centers of excellence, would in turn be sensitized continuously, leading to a dynamic equilibrium between the world of work and the world of education through the interface known as the Innovation Park. If established industries have reservations in setting up their centers at higher education institutions, then budding start-ups would emerge as an alternative option for industry engagement and transform the tertiary education landscape.
(Dr. Paul Wilson is currently serving as the Principal and Secretary of Madras Christian College, Chennai, India)

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