At Krea, we'll teach students to inter-weave knowledge: R Seshasayee

In the real life world, we are not solving any problem by bringing in an expert of one branch of knowledge, the veteran business leader said

It was a thought in his mind for a while and one week after he said it aloud at a public forum, divine forces came into play.
 
Former Ashok Leyland executive vice chairman and Infosys chairman R SESHASAYEE, now 69, was approached by former businessmen and now vice chairman of the executive committee for Krea, Kapil Viswanathan who was working on starting a university for liberal arts. The year was 2016 and the month was June.
 
One thing led to another and soon Seshasayee, N. Vaghul (chancellor and member of the governing council), Raghuram Rajan and a whole bunch of individuals driven by a common cause decided to put their mind and effort behind a university that would ready students for the future world. An Indian training ground for global problem solving. With this lofty and ambitious goal, the Krea university began its journey. 2019 is when it expects to accept its first batch of students (see : Aiming for the Skies).
 
Seshasayee, chairman of the executive committee and member of the governing council of Krea, spoke to Anjuli Bhargava on the thinking behind the project. Edited excerpts:

What is the thinking on higher education that binds the governing council?

If we believe India has or has to have a role to play in addressing global issues, then it is important that we prepare the next generation to be capable of addressing those issues. We have enough institutes of technology in striking distance of being global benchmarks but where we have lagged is the area of arts and science. Pure arts has not been the choice of bright youngsters and somehow the curriculum built around the arts has had traditional patterns and not really had a break from the past.

So, we decided to go in for something that is a global benchmark. We are all convinced, based on our real life experience, of two things. In the real life world, we are not solving any problem by bringing in an expert of one branch of knowledge. We don’t solve the water, pollution or energy problem through a uni-dimensional approach. Working in silos doesn’t work. 

One could argue that one can leave students to make their way, as you or anyone else on your governing council did, through real-life learning and experience…
 

Then, we would have to conclude that university education is really of no relevance. Let everyone learn the hard way, so to speak. But that would be a negation of the importance of education. This really brings us to the crux — that we have not had the right education. If we had, we would not have 100 or 200 people using their learning to solve problems but this number would be in millions. You can’t negate the relevance of education. We have to make education relevant. Second, let’s adopt a problem solving approach. There are two ways of learning economics. One way is to learn the theory of demand and supply and some good institutions even offer application-based problems that can help a student apply what he has learnt while solving a theoretical problem.

The other way of learning economics is to say these are the 10 macroeconomic problems the country is facing and these are what we need to solve. And, therefore, we can work backwards and see what kind of knowledge we need to solve such problems. What do we need to know, how do we process this knowledge, what are the technology tools we need to process this knowledge and, finally, look at the ethical, social and economic dimensions of the possible choices for solving the problem. This will be a different approach. We found this is being talked about by some universities but is not in practice at most. 

Give me an example, so that readers can follow what you mean.

If you are teaching history, not looking at who ruled when and for how long but, say, looking at communal harmony, the periods where it has flourished and when has it not, and what are the variables that contributed to it. Learning in the context of problem solving using technology tools, which were not available in the past and which enable faster and deeper analysis and solutions. The novelty and relevance of this idea is what has brought us all and is bringing more and more people together. We are all learning along the way. It is, of course, a challenge to find quality people to deliver this. But it will happen. I am confident that if we get the right people, it can be done.

I know people like you work almost 14 hours a day. Given all your commitments, how involved are you in Krea?

I am not merely knee-deep but somewhere between waist and neck (laughs). That’s how deep I am. If you have a passion, you make time for it. This is also one of my learnings in life. We are all very involved. Raghu (Raghuram Rajan) makes a lot of time for this. Vaghul jumps on to flights regularly to meet possible evangelists and donors. 

Vaghul and I have created institutions in the past and at our stage, we want to create an institution of relevance to the society. We will give what it takes.