Rishihood University is India’s first social-impact university. Our academic areas include creativity, education, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and public leadership. Skilloutlook Team has interacted with Sahil Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Rishihood University via email. Here is the brief of the discussion.
How is Rishihood University implementing National Education Policy 2020 in its new curriculum design?
Rishihood University has an innovative learning design having a substratum of leadership that we provide to all our learners. Leadership is the essential factor for an individual’s and nation’s success. Therefore, our curriculum is not only aligned to NEP, it further brings in innovation through the availability of choices of majors and minors, emphasis on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fitness, a fully residential campus, and a mentor-mentee style of learning. We also resonate with NEP’s larger vision of improving the quality of education in India and for this, we closely work with teachers, principals, K12 students, and the academic community at large. Further, we encourage entrepreneurship un students by providing incubation and nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset among learners from a young age.
Different subjects offered by the university. Multidisciplinary subjects.
The University offers a liberal education with a range of choices and a wide scope for a combination of subjects as Majors, Minors, and Electives at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Rishihood encourages a multidisciplinary approach to education where students can major in subjects like Psychology, Economics, Business Administration, Commerce, English, Visual Arts, Education, and Healthcare with Minors and Electives offered in Computer Science, Media, Law, Dance, Theatre, Music, Sports, Sustainable Development, Creative Writing, Social Entrepreneurship and more.
University is promoting India’s vision of creating job givers than becoming job seekers – Sahil ji’s comment on it?
Due to the size and nature of our population, entrepreneurship has to be the core of our economy. This is not just new-age startups but also SMEs, family businesses, and microenterprises. Through our School of Entrperepreneurship, we nurture the next generation of business owners but along with that, develop an entrepreneurial mindset in all the students so that irrespective of the domain they go into, they have the potential to lead and succeed. Becoming job givers is as important as being entrepreneurial employees.
Indic Knowledge Systems and finding solutions to the world’s “wicked problems” – what is the Rishihood University’s take on it?
The world faces some grand challenges such as ecological degradation, societal strife and breakdowns, wealth inequalities, and more. The solutions to these problems do not always lie in technology but in mindset. Fortunately, we belong to a civilization that has upheld a very fundamental worldview of human development that takes care of self, societal, and planetary well-being. We actively dip into the Indic Knowledge Systems to find principles that help in answering the wicked and grand problems that the world is facing.
What kind of advantages do a “common undergraduate foundational year” – something RU is looking to implement in the upcoming academic season, hold for students?
Conceptually speaking, the Foundation Year is seedtime for learners. Utilizing this period, they would remain prepared for the rigors of academic discipline when they commit to a rigorous degree course in the next year. We encourage students to spend the foundation year accessing the facilities that come with being part of a residential course on the Rishihood campus – like the Sports Centre and the varsity library, to explore one’s interests and inclinations alongside academia. The first undergraduate year is a great way to self-discover and situate oneself in the matrix of university learning, so that choosing a major and related subject combinations in the second year of graduation can happen organically.
