Education today is about skills: Entrepreneur Aisshwarya DKS Hegde on what must change

At the India Today Karnataka Roundtable, educator and entrepreneur Aisshwarya DKS Hegde said education must move beyond knowledge and memory. From AI and critical thinking to regional languages and higher education in India, she outlined why schools must prepare students for the country they live in today.Education today is about skills: Entrepreneur Aisshwarya DKS Hegde on what must change (Photo: Screengrab/YT)Education can no longer be about how much information a student can remember. At the India Today Karnataka Roundtable, educator and entrepreneur Aisshwarya DKS Hegde said the biggest challenge facing Indian education is changing what education itself means.“Education earlier was basically acquiring knowledge, but today education is all about practising the right skill,” she said, adding that the arrival of artificial intelligence has made this shift even more important.For schools, this means moving beyond content-heavy learning and creating space for critical thinking, ownership and decision-making. Hegde said the focus should not simply be on building “good schools”, but on building better schools with bolder choices.That could mean changing curricula, reshaping institutional culture and ensuring students learn how to use knowledge rather than simply reproduce it in an examination. STUDENTS ARE MOVING FASTER THAN SCHOOLSHegde also pointed to a growing gap between students and the institutions teaching them. Today’s children have unprecedented access to technology, social media and information, and are increasingly vocal about what they expect from schools.“That actually brings to us a point where students have gone so forward,” she said, questioning whether teachers and institutions have the same clarity about what they want for students. She believes there is no single education model that can simply be replicated across India. With differences in language, population, culture and school systems, curriculum must be customised to local needs.WHY REGIONAL LANGUAGES MATTERFor Hegde, language is not only about communication. It can also influence how deeply a student connects with learning.She argued that students can learn better in regional languages and welcomed the National Education Policy’s emphasis on learning in native languages. She also sees artificial intelligence as a potential tool to bridge the language gap.AI, she said, could convert educational content into regional languages within minutes, potentially helping rural students access quality learning without waiting for lengthy translation processes.STUDY ABROAD IS NO LONGER THE ONLY ASPIRATIONHegde also sees India’s higher education landscape changing as international universities begin establishing a presence in the country.With institutions such as the University of Liverpool opening in Bengaluru and other international universities looking at India, she said students’ aspirations need not automatically mean leaving the country.Her own experience shapes that view. Having studied in Bengaluru, she believes staying in India helped her understand its people and culture, which later helped her run schools here. At the same time, she said students can now access international courses, professors and ideas without necessarily moving abroad.For Hegde, the bigger question for Indian education is therefore not simply where students study, but what they learn, how they apply it and whether the system prepares them for the India of today.- EndsPublished On: Aug 26, 2026 17:59 IST