Why 21st Century Children Need to Succeed at Complex Problem Solving – Mr. Aditya Berlia in a webinar with Tanvi Jindal Shete, MuSo

The old formula of working hard at school, graduating from a college and climbing the corporate ladder is no longer valid. From pandemic to depleting water table, from population explosion to rising plastic pollution today’s children have to deal with a complex world full of large problems.
“A sustainable future for children in the 21st century will depend on their ability to navigate these complexities,” said Ms. Tanvi Jindal Shete, founder Museum of Solutions’s (MuSo) in a webinar with Mr. Aditya Berlia, President, Stanford Alumini India N+E & Co-promoter Apeejay Stya & Svran Group.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) the key to future success is having a set of ‘innovation skills’ such as critical thinking, creativity, people management, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility, service orientation among others. However, schools alone might not be sufficient to impart these new age learning tools.

Children’s museums foster creativity and learning
“Most schools can’t provide children with diverse environments to improve awareness and adaptability, they don’t give enough opportunities for experimentation to discover new things and they also have limited resources. Looking at this we decided to build a children’s museum that compliments school education, fosters creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and other real-world skills among children,” said Ms. Tanvi.
In West children’s museum are common. They provide safe, neutral and individualised learning environment, encourage children learning through play, support academic and personal success at school, allow parents to engage with children’s interest and provide inquiry based learning — the fulcrum of India’s National Education Policy 2020.
The Museum of Solutions (MuSo) is a unique experiential children’s museum, opening next year in Mumbai. It will help children discover that learning can be enjoyable, identify challenges and issues they care about, inspire them to act, nurture mindsets needed to solve problems and provide a platform to confidently share their voice. All exhibits in the museum are inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and are extremely interactive for an audio-visual-tactile experience.

We need to inspire our educators
“We wish every single school had this level of in-depth experiential learning on a day-to-day basis and we could redesign our curriculum. I have been on record saying that NEP if properly implemented will change our education system within a year or two. But at the end of the day for the Indian education system to go beyond paper reforms and paper curriculum changes and to really imbibe these things will take several years,” said Mr. Aditya Berlia.
Mr. Berlia also stressed on the importance of inspiring educators. “One thing which I have learnt and I am very glad MuSo is also doing is often we just need to inspire our educators. We forget many of them haven’t had the privilege of visiting such spaces in their growing years and I think once they go in and see how their own students react to such spaces…it will change the mindsets of even teachers.”
While concluding the webinar Mr. Berlia explained why museums aren’t an elitist extravagance. “One could dress this as well as other museums around the world or operas or filmonics as sort of an elitist pursuit… disconnected from real life. But the very purpose of such spaces is to bring in those
people who don’t have experience of these places.”

“I have been on record saying that NEP if properly implemented will change our education system within a year or two”.

Aditya Berlia, President, Stanford Alumini India N+E & Co-promoter Apeejay Stya & Svran Group.

“According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) 34% of students believe their schools are not preparing them for sucess in the job market, 60% of future jobs haven’t been developed yet and 40% of nursery-age children (kindergarteners) in schools today will need to be self-employed to have any form of income. What I have learnt from visiting different museums is that they become a place where generations keep going. You go there year after year and even though the exhibits might still be the same the way you look at them, they way you apply your knowledge, changes with time”..

Tanvi Jindal Shete, founder Museum of Solutions’s (MuSo)