Ahmedabad University, a liberal education-driven research private not-for-profit university in Gujarat, has been recognized by The Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia 2023, under the Teaching and Learning Strategy of the Year Category. Research-pedagogy design and its unique learning initiatives underscored by the Foundation Programme, Engagement and Application Based Learning and Education (ENABLE), and Independent Study Period won university this recognition.
Widely known as the ‘Oscars of higher education’, THE Awards offer a major international platform to recognise outstanding leadership and institutional performance and celebrate Asia’s higher education excellence.
ENABLE is a novel concept of designing and learning of theoretical underpinnings while coming up with real-time solutions for a problem. The University has a hands-on winter term called the Independent Study Period, where students take interdisciplinary block courses offered by experts, practitioners, and pioneers in various fields. All students entering the undergraduate programme go through the Foundation Programme, building the foundations of interdisciplinary learning, engaging with issues of society through project-based learning, and learning to ask the right questions.
“Universities have never been more needed than they are now. As the world works to recover from the Covid pandemic’s devastating impact, the countries that will be most successful in restoring the health of their populations, their economies, and their wider societies will find accomplished guides to new and better futures in our higher education institutions,” said Phil Baty, Chief Knowledge Officer, THE.
Earlier, AACSB, the world’s largest business education association, had chosen Ahmedabad University’s Amrut Mody School of Management for the Innovations That Inspire Award 2023 in recognition of its innovative interdisciplinary Foundation Studios that defines the Foundation Programme, the common core of Undergraduate education.
“Two global awards for the same thing – our Foundation Programme is significant. Our unique pedagogy is being recognized by the world. It is also a direction that the world of education wants to move towards and we are already leading that movement,” said Pankaj Chandra, vice chancellor of Ahmedabad University, which offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral studies in engineering, humanities, management, natural sciences, and social sciences.
