LSE expert urges teachers to create future-proof graduates

Hyderabad: Dr James Abdey, Associate Academic Director, UOL International Programmes and progenitor of the Data Science courses at LSE, urged the assembled educators to recalibrate their existing roles to create future-proof graduates, on Thursday, at the fourth ISBF and LSE Annual Teachers' Symposium held in Hyderabad at Chirec International School.

The ISBF and LSE Annual Teachers' Symposium, a collaborative effort between The London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) and their featured teaching institution, the New Delhi-based Indian School of Business & Finance (ISBF), was organised around the overarching theme of "Empowering Post-Millennials by Future Proofing Learning and Counselling".

The morning session saw a welcome address delivered by Dr G L Tayal, Dean Academics, ISBF. Dr James Abdey delivered the keynote address on empowering students by creating future-proof graduates. Among other things, he said, "The future of higher education is highly dependent on keeping abreast with technological developments and more so their nuances in applications in order to inculcate quality skill in human resource."

Talking about the interface between LSE and ISBF and its importance with reference to Indian students, Dr G L Tayal, Dean, Academics, "LSE, being one of the leading Social Science research institutions of the world, provides one of the most updated application based academic curricula in the world, which benefits from LSE and its academics' deep integration with industry. This proves a boon for Indian students, as they get access to this rigorous and application-oriented academic direction of LSE."

Education directors, counsellors, and academic coordinators from prominent institutions like Indus International, Hyderabad Public School, Chirec International, Gitanjali School, Focus High School and many others actively participated in the symposium.

The morning breakaway sessions had Tiffany Goulet, University Counselor, Oberoi International School, deliberating on 'How Contemporary Counselors are Empowering Students and Parents', while Dr Abdey put forward his views on embedding employability skills in classroom pedagogy. These were followed by two breakaway discussions led by ISBF's Dr G L Tayal and Aryapriya Ganguly, on 'Empowering students by curating participatory teaching-learning assessment environments', and 'Future-proofing careers in Economics, Finance, Management and Data Science, by Dr James Abdey & Chiraag Mehta, Associate Director, ISBF.

The day ended with Chiraag Mehta, Associate Director, outlining ISBF's pedagogical innovations towards inculcating and fostering a spirit of enquiry among students, along the lines of the LSE motto "to understand the causes of things".