Sundar Pichai on how India can adapt to the future of learning

Sundar Pichai has made it to the top of the digital world. Lets listen to his views on education and how India can adapt to the future of learning and being ready for the global market.

Difference between Indian and American Education system

Sundar Pichai talks about how in India parents and students spend a lot of time in deciding the future of the child quiet early on. He says these aspirations leads to children preparing for competitive exams at a very young age. Any difficulty in achieving these goals result in disappointment and discourages students to choose alternatives. In contrast to American education system, where students don’t choose their majors till the final year and get enough time to explore what they would like to pursue.

Life is a long road take it in the right pace and enjoy what you do.

India’s potential in future?

India has tremendous interest in education where parents have aspirations for their kids. But like everything, education needs to change as well. Indian kids have a lot of pressure on achieving the set paths. People should value creativity, try new things and fail and learn. Education needs to evolve, it should be more than books and academics. He says that getting into an elite school does matter a lot though it does not guarantee success. People do well from all walks of life, it does not have to be just a particular degree.

Academics is important but not as important as it is made out to be.

How Sundar Pichai motivated himself to pursue his dreams?

Sundar Pichai says that he started pursuing what he really enjoyed, he would things that he really liked. He loved computing from an early age and he pursued that by enjoying it rather than putting a yardstick to measure his achievements.

What can our Indian students do meet the competitive world

Creativity is in an important attribute, hands on education by doing not just by learning or knowing is important. He says students should be encouraged to take risks, accept that they are different. Children should be well rounded, try new things, take risks, follow their passion. He says loving and enjoying what one is doing is very important. Working on difficult things gives you an advantage as you will find less competition. Failing and setbacks are part of the journey so that you can wear your failure as badge of honour because you attempted it.

Writing is an important skill, learning to write better can help you in life.

What Inspires Sundar Pichai to go on?

The desire to build products keeps him going which would be useful to billions of people. He says sometimes we need to work with people who makes us insecure because then one is pushed to go forward. He says Collaborative work helps to develop cultures and valuing the team work helps him achieve success.

Life is a long road take it in the right pace and enjoy what you do.

There is an incredible opportunity to re-imagine learning for the times to come.

Pichai says that education needs to be lightweight and constant — the skills needed today were scarcely needed 5 years ago and hence it becomes more important for the current system of learning to evolve and update.

As Sundar Pichai puts it, its more important to pursue things we like and feel passionate about and not just for the sake of scoring marks. Academics are important but living in the stress of it, can only make it worse. Schools in India needs to evolve and take a shift from academics and focus more on the overall development of the children. We should give the students the opportunity to understand and process what they would like to do before we tell them what they should do.