Google boss Sundar Pichai’s unconventional advice to students to loosen up and have some fun is well taken. Pichai is not asking students to turn their back on coursework but nudging them to look beyond the narrow confines of the textbook, classroom and laboratory.

For too long, Indian students have been problem solvers instead of problem spotters and solution providers. The easy way out is to lay the blame at Lord Macaulay’s doorstep.

But it is time to look beyond. Technological changes, such as automation, will dramatically alter the ways workplace and economies unfold. Rather than merely master existing texts, students must learn to learn and unlearn, critically question everything and seek to extend the frontiers of knowledge. Analysis, research and innovation must necessarily be the bedrock of the educational experience.

This requires a radical change in the way education in India has unfolded, not just in the manner in which teaching is undertaken but in what is taught as well. Higher education in India has been narrowly and inexorably tied to employment prospects. This has set a premium on applied education, such as engineering, over basic sciences.

This hierarchical arrangement has to change. The emphasis has to shift to the inter- and multi-disciplinary to incorporate the sciences, humanities, arts and social sciences. Innovative thinking has to be the driving force.

This requires another major shift in the way education is produced and consumed in India. India cannot fulfil its dreams of providing the leaders of the 21st century with 19th-century education system.

As the government works to finalise the National Education Policy, it will do well to enable this radical transformation of its classrooms, at school and university levels.