Chandigarh, Monday, November 9, 1998
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Chandigarh, Monday, November 9, 1998 |
Vocational
courses sole solution Expectations from
universities Should dissections be
done away with? Students punished 3M model is now outdated
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Vocational courses
sole solution The education system at present is producing a large number of unemployable people as it does not take into account industry and business needs. The present government at the Centre has made a call for reviewing the national education policy and making it more job- oriented.The policy is likely to be suitably changed with active participation of industry and educationists. The policy is likely to be framed by renowned educationists. The government is of the view that the medium of instruction for imparting education at the primary level should be the student’s mother- tongue and English has to be taught from the primary level. With academia reeling under a resource crunch and state benevolence drying up, higher education is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Can it manage its finances well enough to make government patronage unnecessary ? In India, resources are shrinking. Worse, political thinking is that education is a cost rather than investment. Indeed education has never managed a respectable chunk of the GDP. The government commitment under the common minimum programme was to earmark 6 per cent of the GDP for the sector by the year 2000. But by 1995-96 the allocation was 3.3 per cent. Critics,however, say even 6 per cent is not enough. Clearly, what education needs more than anything else is a fresh perspective, both in government and academia. India’s planners, history shows, had a blind spot when it came to education. Perhaps this was because the political establishment comprising all the political parties had a vested interest in illiteracy and low levels of education which they were convinced were the keys to building up large votebanks. But this blindness appeared to have been universal. Even the World Bank, for decades, was not convinced of the crucial importance of the relationship between investment in education and high levels of growth and productivity. India continues to have dubious distinction of having the largest number of illiterates in the world - an astounding 300 million (or 30 per cent of the world’s illiterates). Among the 87 developing countries, India has been ranked 50th in the field of primary education. As of now, higher education students in the 17 to 23 years age group constitute only 6 per cent of the country. That group is expected to grow over the years and there will be a greater demand for higher education facilities. But there is no planning for this increased demand and the system is likely to deteriorate. Indian industry has not been as encouraging as multinational corporations. Industry has benefitted most from higher education in the country, but has paid nothing in return. Most people in the industry try to select students directly from various professional colleges.Industry investing in educational institutes gets tax benefits. Even then the investment from the industry is not encouraging. Education is a key sector in World Bank’s human capital development strategy. Over the past five years, total World Bank commitment to the education sector amounted to US $ 9.8 billion for 139 projects. This represented 9 per cent of the total World Bank funding over the five year period. Overall, the World Bank steadily increased its funding to this sector over the period. Due to the multiple impact that education can have on poverty reduction, the World Bank involvement in the education sector is tremendous and hence offers great business opportunities to Indian companies involved in the sector. The
sub-sectoral break-up shows that over the past five
years, the maximum amount has gone to projects related to
secondary education and higher education accounting for
29.49 per cent and 26.7 per cent.The World Bank is now
convinced that with investment in the education sector,
economic and social growth is growing at a faster rate. |
Expectations from
universities UNIVERSITY education is not a recent phenomenon in India. Centres of higher learning accommodating thousands of teachers and students in various disciplines flourished in India as far back as 300-400 B.C. Today India is at the top of the world in formal education with 230 universities (including deemed universities), 8000 colleges, 70,000 secondary schools and eight lakh schools. A significant achievement of Indian universities is the width of their functioning. There is hardly a discipline for which instruction is not available in India and the product of Indian universities are welcome in jobs and research projects by almost all countries. But these are two drawbacks. First, the process of modernising higher education in India is rather slow and second the shift towards non-traditional discipline is meagre. However, there is a potent reason for this slow change — lack of funds. Our universities serve a twin purpose. They provide leadership for material development. (For this education is being vocationalised). The second task before the universities is to sharpen the mind and inculcate values in students. Indian universities have fulfilled their role adequately; they owe uncompromising loyalty to fundamental values of life. Their principal object is to deepen man’s understanding of the universe and of himself in body, mind and spirit to disseminate this understanding throughout society and to apply in the service of mankind. They are dwelling places of ideas and idealism and expect high standard of conduct and integrity from all their members. Theirs is the pursuit of truth and excellence in all its diversity — a pursuit which needs above all, courage and fearlessness. In broad terms, the functions of universities in the modern world may be said to be: — to pursue knowledge. — to provide the right kind of leadership in all walks of life — help the youth to develop their potential to the full by cultivating physical fitness, developing the powers of the mind and cultivating right interests, attitudes and moral and intellectual values. — to provide society with competent men and women trained in agriculture, arts, medicine, science and technology and various other professions imbued with a sense of social purpose. — to strive to promote equality and social justice as laid down in the Preamble of the Constitutions. — to foster in teachers and students and through them in society attitudes and values needed for developing the food life in individuals and society. If governments go astray, if society goes astray, it is the universities which have to put them back on the rails. They may fail to do so but it must be their purpose to make serious efforts. Universities must develop programmes of adult-education in a big way. According to World Bank estimates an average Indian has to his credit education of 2.5 primary classes only. Eric Ashby rightly remarked that “Indian universities have failed to adapt themselves sufficiently to the vast and unique opportunities which surround them, they seem to have lost initiative under the crushing problems which beset them ... with a few notable exceptions they remain examining bodies and their students naturally regard success in examination as the sole end of undergraduate career... to the observer from outside the Indian intellectual remains a culturally displaced person, nostalgically treasuring his threads of communication with England”. Our universities have to shed the feeling of individual possession of huge libraries and laboratories and introduce teaching and research in every discipline. They have instead, to pool resources, share equipment, buildings and even teachers and also see that the use of facilities is maximised and every rupee runs the longest distance. Developing countries like India have to invest more in human development than in buildings and equipment. Newer strategies in this direction have to be developed and universities have to generate their own financial resources. (The
author is Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University,
Amritsar.) |
Should
dissections be done away with? NEW DELHI: About 21 lakh rabbits, monkeys, rats, dogs, cats, pigeons, frogs and other small animals are killed for dissections at school and college level every year. While animal rights activists say this mundane practice should be eliminated from school curriculum, educationists feel practical knowledge at initial stages is must for pursuing higher studies in related fields. “dissections can be cut down a little at some levels by substituting them with plastic models, but totally eradicating them from the syllabi would be at the cost of quality teaching,’’ says delhi’s health minister dr harsh vardhan. “dissections are outdated and reduce our sensitivities’’, says environmental and animal activist iqbal malik, noting that more and more educators in the west are moving away from traditional animal lab experiments to computer simulations and slides. The union government had initially set up a committee in 1991 to monitor experiments involving these animals in educational institutions in the country but the issue gained momentum about two years ago when the central board of secondary education ruled that dissections were not required for lower classes and made them optional in the 10th standard. The ministry of environment and forests reconstituted the committee again last year to find out what kind of experiments were being conducted on animals, whether they were necessary and if alternative procedures could be followed. “all these procedures have been assessed by scientists and experts and are being done for a number of years,’’ says dr vardhan adding, “the government goes by the stand of the expert bodies and it should be left to them to decide whether dissections can be done away with.’’ But there are others who feel dissections are an integral part of the curriculum and cannot be done away with. “Dissections should not be banned. We are not making theoretical doctors. They have to face real life situations for which enough practical knowledge is a must,’’ says dr sangeeta bhatia, principal, new state academy school. “As far as teaching biology through models and computer simulations is concerned, they won’t give the student the sort of confidence needed for performing surgeries or related procedures in the future,’’ Dr bhatia says. The proliferation rate of rats and rabbits is so high that by using these animals, we are not wiping out the species, says a biology graduate. “in the school syllabi, the dissection of frog was changed to rats, after it was found that their large, unchecked population was playing havoc in the fields,’’ says Dr bhatia. Dissections are not done at class x level and at the senior secondary stage only a fraction of the students who want to persue a related carrier take up science. Volunteers working for the ministry of environment and an ngo vatavaran surveyed the secondary schools across the country and found that 50 per cent of the schools conducted dissections at class ix-x level. The most commonly used animals were rats and frogs. Only about 14 per cent of all the science students of class xii got into professional courses where they need to use their skill of dissecting an animal, the survey report says. The survey further says that at the school level 15 lakh rats and frogs are killed for dissection every year. While in some not so well-off schools, the students did three to four dissections in one year, a handful of elite public schools arranged for a dissection every week during the academic year “to perfect the skill’’, says malik, a member of the committee. At the graduation level, five lakh rats, pigeons, frogs, cockroaches and honey bee were dissected while at the post-graduate level, scissors were used upon one lakh rats, rabbits, pigeons, lizards, snakes, mussels and snails. The veterinary students dissected over 50,000 monkeys, dogs and cats every year, said the survey report. “while rats and other animals are often bred by animal supply houses, frogs are caught from the wild, which causes serious environmental concerns,’’ says the report. The method of disposal of these animals is equally unhygienic — most of them are dumped along with other waste in municipal bins. “biology, which can be the most fascinating of all sciences has been reduced to mundane mugging, dissections and trapping, killing and preserving different species,’’ says malik. “...Preservatives discolour and the glass jars cannot contain the natural environment,’’ she says calling for “taking biology to the fields and involving students in field projects and handling live animals, studying about their habit and habitat.’’ the students who on the one hand dissect frogs in the laboratories, cannot even recognise the egg of the frog or the tadpole in the open, says malik. Dr
Bhatia agrees that theoretical knowledge must be
supplemented with the field experience, but “it
should not be at the cost of the cutting
option.’’ (PTI) |
Students punished PATIALA: Punjabi University has punished 47 students for adopting unfair means in the annual examination held in April-May this year. As many as 35 students have been disqualified for taking any university examination for a year. Another 10 have been served with a two- year disqualification sentence by two “UMC” (unfair means cases) committees formed by the university to verify the degree of unfair means adopted and to decide the punishment. The two separate committees have been formed for a speedy trial of the cases. The members of the first committee are: a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, a former registrar and a retired controller of examination of a university in the region. The members of the second committee are a senior advocate, a retired professor and one official from the Consumer Redressal Forum in the state. According to authoritative sources, a total number of 180 students in addition to seven cases of “impersonation” were booked under the different ordinances relating to unfair means cases. Besides, announcing punishment of two year or one year disqualification the UMC committees have also cancelled answer-sheets of two students. Seven students, however, have been acquitted of the unfair means charge. According to a highly placed official in the university, nearly 15 per cent of students charged under UMC were girls. Even one girl has been booked under the ‘impersonation’ category. The highest number of students adopting unfair means belong to the Bachelor of Arts first year class. As many as 101 students were caught during the examination. The B.A. second year, comes next in the list with 41 students. Only one student of Bachelor of Science was found cheating. In the post-graduate classes also there was high incidence in classes or courses other than the science group. The university official also informed that the number of students booked under UMC was gradually on the decline. While last year there were nearly 250 cases this time the figure has come down to less than 200. He added that couple of years ago nearly 400 students were found cheating.
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3M model is now
outdated From an industrialised society, we are moving to a new world, organised around information and right knowledge. In today’s environment, the conventional 3M (men, machines and materials) resource model which has been the basic building block of MBA programme for a very long time, has become outdated. Information has emerged as the key management resource. With right knowledge and information, the 3Ms can be sourced as per the requirements of an enterprise. So while our businesses continue to focus on the right knowledge and latest information about business environment, the MBA courses are still being modelled in our B-schools and universities, around a conventional 3M mass production model. This has been the most important reason for a large gap between what is taught in the MBA programme compared to the actual business practices. In order to have MBAs who can quickly orient themselves to the requirements of business world, we need to costomise (not mass produce) business administration courses keeping in view the specific needs of trade and industry. This requires restructuring the existing programme by updating the core subjects and adding new ones. For instance students studying quality management should get an exposure to international quality standards viz., ISO 9000, ISO 14000,QS 9000 etc., There has been an extensive application of these standards in our country in several business segments in the past few years. Likewise, customer care and service has emerged as the key competitive tool for organisations in today’s business environment. Subjects on marketing management should be modelled around these requirements. Materials management students should learn some of the new generation concepts on integrated supply chain management. There is also need to introduce new topics as an integral part of the MBA programme such as use of Internet, including electronic commerce, environment management, total quality management, bench marking, business process re-engineering, activity-based accounting, cross cultural studies on business practices and management styles in different countries and so on. To get
first hand information of what’s happening in the
business world, our institutions should maintain active
links with trade and industry. |
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Hindi Chair at Bucharest varsity A Hindi Chair has been established at Bucharest University following an agreement between Romania’s Minister of Education Andrej Marga and India’s Ambassador in Bucharest Rajiv Dogra. According to an official press release, Prof Yatindra Tiwari took the first Hindi class at the Department of Oriental Studies, reports ANI. The establishment of the Chair was in response to a long-standing need in Romania where ‘Tagore’ is a household word and ‘Upanishads’ and ‘Geeta’ are common knowledge. “It was in tribute to the regard for Tagore that the prestigious National Theatre of Bucharest unveiled on September 25 a bust of Rabindranath Tagore, which had been specially sent by the Indian Council For Cultural Relations. The only other bust of a foreign personality at the National Theatre is that of Shakespeare,” the release said. Gun menace in USA Nearly one out of three high-school boys in the USA has a firearm, according to a nationwide study by the National Institute of Justice. The survey of 10th and 11th grade students found that half the boys say they can get firearms relatively easily, primarily from their families and friends. The report noted that the majority said their primary reason for carrying or possessing firearms was protection, not criminal activity or status enhancement. Of the 6 per cent who reported carrying a gun outside the home, 4 per cent said they did so “now and then” and 2 per cent said they carried “most or all” of the time. Among gun carriers, 59 percent said they were more likely to do so in a car rather than directly on their persons, according to a report published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Interactive Web” for students High-school
students, teachers and others interested in biology can
find a treasure-trove of resources that make complex
science concepts easier to understand. Through the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute’s Web site
(http://www.holidaylectures.org), they can explore
biology on the “Interactive Web” and use
“Ask a Scientist” for timely answers to a host
of life-science questions. The “Interactive
Web” uses JAVA, video, virtual reality and Shockwave
to make science come alive. High-school students helped
design many of the activities with other high-school
students in mind. “Ask a Scientist” provides an
online e-mail form for submitting questions on a wide
range of biological disciplines, including human
genetics, neurobiology, developmental biology, molecular
biology, biological structure, general biology, and
immunology. In addition to answers provided by e-mail,
answers to selected questions for each topic are posted
online, reports Internet News Bureau. |
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