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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know Dr. Sudhir M. Parikh Founder, Chairman & Publisher Ilayas Quraishi Chief Operating Officer Ela Dutt Editor Archana Adalja Contributing Editor T. Vishnudatta Jayaraman Advisor Arun Shah Ahmedabad Bureau Chief Peter Ferreira, Deval Parikh, Freelance Photographers Bhailal M. Patel Executive Vice President Jim Gallentine Business Development Manager - U.S. Shahnaz Sheikh Senior Manager Advertising & Marketing Sonia Lalwani Advertising Manager Shailu Desai Advertising New York Muslima Shethwala Syed Sheeraz Mahmood Advertising Chicago Digant Sompura Consultant for Business Development Ahmedabad, India Hervender Singh Circulation Manager Main Office Editorial & Corporate Headquarters 1655 Oak Tree Toad, Suite 155 Edison, NJ 08820-2843 Tel. (212) 675-7515 Fax. 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Postmaster: Send address change to News India Times, 1655 Oak Tree Toad, Suite 155 Edison, NJ 08820-2843 Annual Subscription: United States: $28 Disclaimer: Parikh Worldwide Media assumes no liability for claims/ assumptions made in advertisements and advertorials. Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. Education Needs ARadical Overhaul For The AI Age AI can provide every child with a personalised tutor that speaks their mother tongue, adapts to their pace, and presents ideas through tailored pathways I ndia has reached a rare national consensus: Education must change. The outrage over examination leaks and widespread corruption creates an opportunity to go far beyond securing question papers, punishing brokers, or tightening supervision. India has the chance to shed the colonial bag- gage that has constrained its classrooms for generations — and build an educa- tion system for the age of Artificial Intel- ligence (AI). The education system clearly de- mands a radical overhaul and AI can help India build something far better. (Shutterstock) The education system clearly de- mands a radical overhaul and AI can help India build something far better. (Shutterstock) Examinations have long defined learning in India, with children spend- ing their formative years memorising answers and chasing test scores, rarely given the ability to reason, question, create, or solve real-world problems. This fixation on high-stakes testing has created an economy of desperation and corruption. When a single score can dictate a child’s entire future, marks be- come a commodity, coaching becomes a multibillion-dollar industry, and stolen papers become extraordinarily valuable. Corrupt officials, brokers, and criminal syndicates profit from families driven by the fear that one exam will make or break their children’s lives. Also Read: NEP at six: Is India’s edu- cation system ready for the AI age? AI will make this old form of cheat- ing look primitive. Students already use AI to write essays, generate research papers, produce code, and answer ex- amination questions — all while under- standing virtually none of it. The next wave of academic fraud will no longer rely on officials secretly selling leaked papers. Instead, machines will quietly perform the very work that schools continue to mistake for learning. The education system clearly de- mands a radical overhaul and AI can help India build something far better. But to understand what should replace the old model, we must first understand how we arrived here. The British imposed an educational model engineered entirely to serve an empire. They required compliant clerks and obedient administrators to enable them to govern a vast nation. Examina- tions were used to sort Indians by recall, conformity, and usefulness to their white masters. Thomas Macaulay explicitly sought to create a class that was Indian by birth, but English in intellect, tastes, and opinions — sidelining India’s rich traditions of philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and debate. A civilisation that gave the world Nalanda and Takshashila was subjugated and trained to seek legitimacy from foreign rulers. India won independence, but sadly the structural baggage of colonial edu- cation remained. The country now has the chance to complete the unfinished work of independence: By designing a system that once again develops origi- nal thinkers, pioneering scientists, bold entrepreneurs, visionaries, and coura- geous leaders. That transformation begins by rede- fining learning itself, and fortunately, India already knows how— because it taught the world how to learn. Long before standardised testing and rigid classrooms, education across India was anchored in the guru-shishya tradition and the gurukula. Learning was rooted in a personal relationship with a teacher who understood each student’s unique temperament, abilities, and pace. Teaching was tailored to the individual, weaving knowledge together with character, discipline, curiosity, and the courage to ask difficult questions. That ancient principle remains com- pletely relevant today: Every child learns differently, and education becomes transformative when it nurtures the whole person. Technology, for the first time, allows us to apply this concept at scale. AI can provide every child with a personalised tutor that speaks their mother tongue, adapts to their pace, and presents ideas through tailored pathways. It can identify gaps in com- prehension and democratise quality instruction across all languages. Re- lieved of repetitive drills and mechani- cal grading, teachers are freed for their highest purpose: mentoring students, cultivating judgment, and igniting curiosity. India must also restore its tradition of disciplined intellectual debate, and the world’s greatest his- toric centre of learning is once again showing the way forward. Nalanda University, in its revived form, has resurrected strrtha — the rigorous ex- amination of ideas through structured dialogue and argument. In this tradi- tion, scholars were required to master opposing positions, present concrete evidence, defend their logic, and listen carefully before responding. Also Read: Focusing on processes, not outcomes, as base for education reforms Nalanda has integrated strrtha into its academic calendar and convocation process, requiring students to defend their research orally before panels of scholars. This practice relies on two pillars: Prvapaka, demonstrating a thor- ough understanding of the opposing argument, and Uttarapaka, delivering a reasoned, evidence-based response. Students are judged on logic, evidence, and intellectual honesty, rather than merely the polish of a written submis- sion. This model offers the ultimate anti- dote to AI-generated slop. A student can easily prompt a machine to produce an impressive paper, but genuine under- standing is tested when asked: Why do you hold this view?What evidence con- tradicts your thesis?What assumptions are you making? Borrowed words always collapse under serious questioning. Primary and secondary schools should embrace this same principle. Students should spend more time dis- cussing ideas, solving real-world chal- lenges, conducting experiments, and defending their work. Major projects should feature oral defences. An AI- generated answer offers little protection when a student must explain the rea- soning and apply it to a new problem. India should continue to absorb the best of western science and technol- ogy, but the oppressive machinery left behind by the British must no longer define the limits of its ambition. That system served an empire and rewarded passivity, rote learning, fuelled systemic corruption, and constrained genera- tions of Indian genius. India has finally outgrown it. This is the moment to free teachers to inspire, give every child a personalised path to mastery, and restore dialogue, questioning, and intellec- tual courage to the heart of the classroom. India once taught the world how to learn. In the age of AI, it has the oppor- tunity — and the duty — to do so again. Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences. The views expressed are personal By VivekWadhwa PHOTO:CourtesyVivekWadhwa Opinion News India Times (August 1, 2026 - August 7, 2026) August 7, 2026 3