DIEM:Disruptive Innovation Educational Model for Technological Universities

This article presents the 21^st Century Challenges before the Higher Education, in general and Technical and Management Education; in particular. The major issues faced by this sector like proliferation, affordable, access, equity and equality, quality education, etc., are presented. The features of sustaining and disrupting innovation models and their impact on industry world are highlighted. Traditional universities and business models like solution-shops, value-added processing and facilitated users networks, are considered. The proposed recommendations for policy makers suggested by Christensen et al are listed. It has been argued that disrupting innovation model can afford low-cost education with quality as perceived by students and other stakeholders in terms of say demonstration of skills and knowledge acquisition rather than merely obtaining a paper degree certificate. The emphasis is not on building of buildings but on building of minds. A few suggestions like use of lean philosophy, reduction in teaching work-load, revising faculty qualifications, implementing process and performance management, in-service industrial training, superannuating age, etc., are made. It is believed that the article will be of interest, thought provoking and disrupting the status quo of Indian traditional universities.