A Report on the recently held Quest 2 Learn 2017 Summit, Bengaluru

The second edition of Quest 2 Learn 2017 was held on 2-3 June at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. With 207 attendees from 14 states, Quest 2 Learn 2017 saw some impactful conversations on education and employment. Educationists, skills trainers, youth, government officials, corporations and foundations intensely brought numerous perspectives on improving learning experiences across and beyond classrooms. There were four plenary sessions, four co-labs and three masterclasses that focused on ideas to enable young people become life-long learners and solutions to build capacities of educators to adapt to 21^st century learning.

The keynote speaker, Sr. Sasha Barab, Director of Center for Games & Impact at Arizona State University, elucidated the need to shift the learning ecosystem’s focus from efficiency to empowerment for long-term outcomes. Industry partners Cisco, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Accenture etc weighed in their take on enabling graduates to become effectively employable and stressed the importance of providing youth more opportunities to be work-ready.

At Co-Labs, participants formed working groups and brainstormed to arrive at solutions and co-create a road map. These groups will stay connected through the year and build on their idea, solution. We had 4 Co-Labs on:

• How do we create city based networks and support systems for young people to thrive?
• How do we integrate life skills into our schools’ curriculum equipping students from low income backgrounds with skills to succeed?
• How do we build hyper local city-based networks of teachers and trainers, and effectively mobilize trainers offline?
• How do we create local entrepreneurial value chains?

Co-Labs were anchored by sector practitioners like Central Square Foundation, Enable India, Dream A Dream, Drishti, Haiyya, Reap Benefit and YouthNet.

MasterClasses were 2 hours of intense skills and perspective building workshops that triggered important questions and explored new methodologies for learning. We had 3 MasterClasses on:

• How do we build interest based career pathways?
• How do we build a learning culture within organizations & institutions?
• How do we get people to become digitally literate so that they can start producing evidence of their own learning?

MasterClasses were facilitated by Center for Games & Impact, Arizona State University, Riverside School, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd., and Quest Alliance.

Some of the key influencers shared valuable insights:

“The biggest challenge we see is people who get an education but not a job. It’s a big blow to graduate and be unemployable. Despite so many graduates, we as industry have talent shortages, because candidates don’t have the right skills. The second challenge is that the lifespan of your skills is around five years.”

— Virginia Sharma, Director, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

“The purpose of the education system is not education, it’s the education system itself. The system is designed to perpetuate itself, not to make education better. It then becomes very difficult to make a change as the system tries to preserve itself.”

— Subir Shukla, Principal Coordinator, IgnusERG

“For virtual games based learning to be meaningful, there has to be a real-world connect. We need a more human approach in the digital space, while also bringing more of the digital space into the classroom, alongside the educator. The human element is important.”

— Dr. Anna Arici, Learning Scientist, Arizona State University

The first annual publication curated by Quest Alliance, The Learner was launched at the summit. The Learner engages diverse voices from within and beyond the education and skills sector, and provides a unique space for new insights and perspectives to embrace the identity of ‘learner’ in all that we do. If you’d like a copy, write to info@questalliance.net

The core intention behind the summit is to build a broad-based partnership with organizations, teachers, trainers and the industry to shift the paradigm and explore new learning methodologies and platforms that consciously develop all round (cognitive and non-cognitive) skills and capabilities. For more details on the plenary sessions, masterclasses and co-labs that brainstormed new methodologies for learning, write to info@questalliance.net

Quest 2 Learn 2017 is an annual summit organized by Quest Alliance, a non-profit trust working to bridge the education and skills divide by enabling self-learning for young people aged 10-35 years. Quest designs scalable and replicable solutions across three programs: Anandshala – works to create joyful schools; MyQuest – focuses on career development for youth; and MasterCoach – builds trainers as 21st Century change agents.