Towards ‘Responsible & Engaged’ Teaching-Learning Processes: New Paradigm in Indian Higher Education

In the contemporary times, the importance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as public institutions and agents of knowledge creation have assumed renewed importance. With this, the teaching-learning (T-L) processes at HEIs have caught global attention, with increasing calls for the latter to be conducted in a more ‘responsible & engaged manner’; one that nurtures students as ‘good ethical citizens’, rather than just producing a ‘good workforce’. For this, it is important that T-L processes respond to the demands of students and the society. This requires overhauling the traditional T-L processes in ways that make the students more conscious of their social challenges and also enabling them to address the latter. This paper delves into the Indian context and while it identifies the challenges, it also reflects on the emerging new paradigm with respect to ‘responsible’ T-L processes and cites the best practice T-L models, being increasingly adopted in Indian HEIs.