The FRACTION project had a four day workshop in Kolkata (India). Together with Thomas Köhler (TU Dresden), I experienced intensive days with participants from the University of Engineering and Management (UEM), Kolkata and the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai. The aim of FRACTION is to set up their own further training courses for innovative, digital university teaching in the participating institutions.
The Indian university landscape is of course quite foreign to me at first. A mix of colleges, universities and institutes, tuition and/or publicly funded, a very strong private higher education sector, a unified nationwide test (CUET) that applies to government institutions but acts as a quasi-standard, and many other “othernesses”. make the four days a special learning experience for me in this respect as well.
Most impressive are (as always) the people. It is highly competent scientists and university managers who are enthusiastic about the further development of teaching and studies, who want to familiarize themselves in detail with the possibilities of innovative university teaching in the FRACTION project and convert them into concrete implementations at their universities. Both private institutions present treat the change processes as an organizational task, whereby the further development of teaching is considered a natural part of the tasks of the teachers. It is taken for granted that those involved can cope with change requirements. I am very excited to see what will develop as part of the project.
