Param University: Meta University with New Education and Social Development

Abstract

The Information Communication Technologies of the 21st Century have created always connected people, newer processes and mechanisms, and new ways of organizing and governing people. These developments offer an opportunity to reconstruct and create a new paradigm of education that links learning from global educational resources with social development in the local situations. A course of ICT skills offered by MKCL has created a system of e-education with over million students annually. A teacher education program based on role based learning has enabled to evolve New Education based on OER, distributed classroom with support services on e-platform. Param University education is the outcome of these experiments in the form of Meta University with focus on sustainable situated development. // Param University essentially creates cyber infrastructure that can support learners networked on e-platform with centralized learning support services from Course Team of teachers. They are supported by chain of Study Centers at localities, and each consist of local experts and mentors to help students apply learning in their situated development, and in creation of socially useful and productive work. The learning and development is life and work centric; and is carried out by playing multiple roles often by forming groups/teams with the aim to find out student’s own role and unique functions to suit his/her talents, aptitude and motivation. The self and social development is linked with capacity, capability and co-creativity building, and enables in finding learning and development paths and goals in life and work. A constructivist approach to bootstrap learning and development in life centric education enables to create a social developmental model with global learning and contextual and situated social development. // Paper ID: 165