The very idea that all branches of creative human endeavour, including social science, humanities, vocational and professional subjects, and soft skills should be considered as ‘arts’, has a distinctly Indian origin. It is needless to highlight that famous ancient literature Kadambari, written by Banabhatta, mentions about ‘knowledge of the 64 kalaas or arts. This notion of a ‘knowledge of many arts’ or what in modern times is often called the ‘liberal arts’ must be brought back to Indian education, as it is exactly the kind of education that will be required for the 21st century. Liberal Arts education covers vivid disciplines of humanities and social sciences such as History, Economics and Development Studies, Politics and International Relations, Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Language and Literature, Linguistics, Music, Theatre, Creative Arts, etc.
The National Education Policy has been launched by the Government of India on 29th July 2020. It is popularly known as NEP 2020 which outlines the vision of new education system in India. In modern times, knowledge-driven world, access to quality education and the chances of national development are two sides of the same coin. NEP 2020 gives a dynamic vision which could change the implication of all traditional disciplines as per the societal and global needs and demands in the 21st century world. It provides a multi-layer dimension for the advancement of traditional subjects like humanities and social sciences. The curriculum and syllabus for the liberal arts education would be more focused on the research, innovation and employability. It emphasises on the practical learning of soft skills and critical thinking. So it could enable students to engage in experiential learning activities like debates and discussion, peer learning, flip classes, internship programmes and project on social responsibility and community engagement and so on. Apart from theoretical understanding in specialisation of their degree, students would learn more from the practicality of the discipline with its inter-disciplinary approach.
For academic and professional convenience, these disciplines are taught as independent subjects. This leads to imparting fragmented knowledge to students which results in limited learning, not enough in terms of either knowledge acquisition or the required skills to be employable. Hence, to supplement their capabilities, add-on courses along with an emphasis on learning new skills are to be compulsorily offered to help students become employable. For instance, if students of history take up a couple of add-on courses like a Diploma in Media Studies, Business Analytics, Data Science, economics etc., it helps them to successfully compete for the jobs. Likewise, a course on Indian Society and Culture would be helpful to students desiring to work in non-government organisations, popularly known as NGOs, where it would be value addition. Students from Humanities enrolling for an add-on course on Indian Heritage and Culture would benefit if they aspire for jobs in the tourism industry. Likewise, students of Economics doing one or two add-on courses in International Relation, Public Policy and Political Science would be successful in jobs in public and private international organisations and business journalism. Similarly, students of Journalism will be benefited by taking a course on History or on Public Administration to get familiar with understanding of diversity and social inclusion and functioning of governance, respectively. Another relevant example is the discipline of Social Work which falling in the category of social sciences which has theoretical and practical aspects in due course of learning. Students of Social Sciences should be compulsorily made to opt for add-on course in Social Work as it enables them to take up jobs in the NGO sector and the society at large. In true sense, liberal arts make education more experiential, holistic, integrated, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, discussion-based, flexible, and of course, enjoyable.
This new policy endorses all the major aspects and themes of liberal arts and redefines the utilisation of subject knowledge according to the global standard of education. Its inter-disciplinary approach makes all the disciplines of humanities and social science more relevant and meaningful. At one side, it attempts to reshape the curriculum and syllabus of social sciences as per the needs of global market and on the other side it maintains the core traditional value of liberal arts education with its distinct characteristics and features. Apart from this, it also accommodates various allied subjects into the domain of liberal arts education as an independent discipline. For example, Tourism, Indian Heritage and Culture, Yoga, Public Policy, Social Work, Environmental Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Ethics and so on are incorporated as a separate degree course in the domain of social sciences with its redefined syllabus. All curriculum and pedagogy is redesigned to be strongly rooted in the Indian and local context and ethos in terms of culture, traditions, heritage, customs, language, philosophy, geography, ancient and contemporary knowledge, societal and scientific needs, indigenous and traditional ways of learning etc. in order to ensure that education is maximally relatable, relevant, and effective for the students.
Liberal arts education enables the development of an enlightened, socially conscious, knowledgeable, and skilled nation that can find and implement robust solutions to its own problems. It forms the basis for knowledge creation and innovation thereby contributing to a growing national economy. NEP 2020 aims to bring holistic change in all the disciplines of humanities and social sciences and so it highly recommends the cross-disciplinary approach in liberal arts education. The policy emphasises on the maximal utilisation of each discipline which lies in the domain of humanities and social sciences. The objective behind liberal arts education is to provide more opportunities to students, so they can become skilled and employable. This policy also attempts to shift the paradigm of social sciences from traditional subject to technical one by focusing more on its practicality of understanding. It emphasises on discipline-specific experiential learning activities and its utilisation in the job market.
The policy also recommends that, towards the attainment of such a holistic and multidisciplinary education, the flexible and innovative curricula of all higher education institutes shall include credit based courses and projects in the areas of social responsibility and community engagement, environmental education, and value-based education. Value-based education consists of the development of humanistic, ethical, constitutional, and universal human values of truth (satya), righteous conduct (dharma), peace (shanti), love (prem), non-violence (ahimsa), scientific temper, citizenship values, and life-skills (as mentioned in the NEP draft). In this regard, social responsibility and community engagement programmes is considered an integral part of holistic education. Thus, it provides an interdisciplinary learning which leads to an overall development of students. Courses and programmes in subjects, such as Indology, Indian languages, yoga, arts, music, history, culture and modern India, globally relevant curricula in the sciences, social sciences, and beyond, meaningful opportunities for social engagement, quality residential facilities would be fostered to attain the goal of global quality standards, attract greater numbers of international students, and achieve the goal of ‘internationalisation at home’.
In career point of view, liberal arts education opens up vast range of job opportunities in the field of government and private sectors such as civil services, social work, archive and museum, archeology, teacher, lecturer, content writing, script writing, journalism, public relation, media and broadcasting, infotainment industry, translation, etc. There are some universities which are emerging as a centre for excellence in liberal arts education such as Ashoka University (Sonipat), FLAME University (Pune), Adamas University (Kolkata), Christ University (Bengaluru) and so on. Adamas University (Kolkata) is one of the best higher education institutions in eastern part of India which has a distinct school for liberal arts education i.e., School of Liberal Arts and Culture Studies (SOLACS). This school runs various programmes of liberal arts education under NEP 2020. Important to highlight that SOLACS is supported by Centre for Study of Contemporary Theory and Research, Centre for Lifelong Learning and Career Development Centre.
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