Design education the next big sector?

Design is essentially a synthesising discipline. It does not have its repository or knowledge bank, like for example in law, medicine etc. The generalist and multidisciplinary approach allows Design to draws its knowledge base from almost all other disciplines. Hence, design education is highly experiential in nature.

The Indian corporate world and the ever-demanding Indian consumers have the undying hunger for well designed products and services. India’s current annual consumption of design services is estimated at Rs 3,400 crore. This is expected to grow to Rs 12,300 crore in the next five years. India currently trains around 1,000 design professionals every year against a requirement of 7,000 to 8,000. The statistics have shown that India has only 2 designers for every one million population, whilst Finland has 120 designers and Japan has 90 designers to the same ratio.

While India is facing the deficiency of requisite number of professional designers, its already trained professional design fraternity is finding it hard to address the key development issues. At the same time their well designed products and services are beyond the reach of the marginalised section of society. It is in this context the design education needs to be thought of in new paradigm.

The masters of design education including Prof Anne Boddington, Design Council Trustee, University of Brighton; Prof Pradyumma Vyas, Director, National Institute of Design; Jo Johnson MP, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, UK; Baroness Usha Prashar, Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees, British Council spoke on The Future of Design education at the India-UK Design Summit.

As Johnson puts it, “Indian government is leading the way on a big number with its positive policies and ideas on designs, design education quality etc which will help set standards for Indian designs to inspire new ideas and protect them when they reach the market. The Indian government is keen to foster domestic designs such as we are in the UK and thus, we’re glad to be a partner of India and I am confident to achieve great things together in the coming years. The design education in India will be a great building block in the years to come.”

According to Vyas, “There is a major shift taking place for design education in India. The challenges faced by design education are ecology, industrialisation, consumer waste and dump, earthquake and tsunami, infrastructure, global economy and more. We need to consider all these in order to make design education big in India.”

As put by Boddington, “We are committed to developing creative leadership, shaping learning environments and fostering collaborations that benefit students and staff, underpin quality education, research and innovative practices for all, and that make a tangible societal difference. Design education is a vital skill for 21^st century. It brings together creative and cognition skills and proper education.”

Design education in India will require a new pedagogical approach to design which will prepare the requisite change agents, who will address the needs of the society, who will create better communities by working to improve human experience and who will constantly adapt themselves to rapid changes that are taking place in the society and in technology. At the same time Design education will have to develop a new pedagogy to develop Design Educators who will prepare the requisite young change agents.