Scaling Up Education by Adopting Interdisciplinary Methods in Teaching: An Indian Perspective

The role of the proposed Higher Education Commission of India must comprise efficient development and regulation of the education sector in general and legal academia in particular. The author suggests what one understands by the term ‘interdisciplinary’ and how it can be successfully incorporated into universities offering legal courses in India. Considering the fact that the NEP authorizes the HECI for the regulation of higher education in India with respect to funding, syllabus standard review (for academics) and accreditation being granted to educational institutions, this article seeks to suggest a modern approach in legal teaching by adopting the inter-disciplinary approach in the teaching pedagogy. By the term interdisciplinary, the author means “efficient education that prepares the student community for a complex world to which they are unsure/unaware about” rather than the already prevailing education system, which is not helpful as it focuses only on an outcome and not the process. “Inter-disciplinarity is the integration of the contributions of several disciplines to a problem or an issue where this integration brings interdependent parts of knowledge into harmonious relationships.” “Multi-disciplinarity is when several disciplines provide a different perspective on a problem or issue.” “Trans-disciplinarity involves an even higher level of integration, where the disciplinary perspectives themselves fall away, to be replaced by a unity of intellectual frameworks.”