KNOWLEDGE WARRIORS

A simple mantra—what problem can I solve—is reshaping college education in India

- BY ABHINAV SINGH

Not long ago, a commerce assignment at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) meant reproducing theoretical concepts on paper. This year, a faculty member replaced that with something different: students were handed publicly available government datasets and AI-assisted analytical tools and asked to investigate local economic issues and present policy recommendations. The quality of what undergraduate students produced, principal Simrit Kaur recalls, was remarkable. It was not an anomaly. It was a signal.

Across India’s top colleges, the lecture-and-examination model is being dismantled. In its place, institutions are building something harder to define but easier to recognise: a culture where students are expected not just to absorb knowledge but to question it, apply the learning and produce new knowledge.