My experience in the CEA conference as Workshop Facilitator

By Deepak Kumar Nanda, TISS Mumbai

It was a splendid experience being a part of the CEA conference as a facilitator for two days in the student workshop which consisted of brilliant students from Roskilde University, Denmark; Xing Wei College, China; University of Los Andes, Colombia; and TISS, Mumbai. I was facilitating a group under the theme of “Student-led Innovation” where students demonstrated innovative ideas and models that have been successful in their respective universities: as for example – student led college system of Xing Wei, CEAZine initiative of Roskilde, Research and Innovation Centre of students of Los Andes, network for academic help and social activities. All ideas were fascinating but personally I was amazed by the concept of student led education of Xing Wei College, China, where the students hired their teachers. This was something beyond my thinking. It was a challenging task of brainstorming to put all these ideas into one platform to further strengthen CEA partnerships and build a platform for mutual learning. Finding a commonality among all the innovations was a difficult task for us but the outcome was extremely fruitful.

In addition to being a mentor in the student’s workshop, I also presented a paper jointly with Soma on “Democratisation of Higher level education in India: Lessons to be drawn from the Scandinavian Education Policy”, where we attempted to compare the higher education policies of India and Sweden and draw lessons from the inclusive education policy of Sweden. Throughout the conference, I got an exposure to the varied issues and innovative ideas within the theme of “University-Society Partnerships” by listening to all the presentations and interacting with scholars from across the globe. It was an enriching experience!

About the Author

Mr. Deepak Kumar Nanda, is a PhD scholar, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is writing his PhD thesis on “Political Economy of Social and Spatial Inequality in Odisha, India”. He is former President of Students’ Union, TISS Mumbai and engaged in students- and youth- led initiatives and activities.

Featured picture owned by Bhupendra “The Soul Traveler”