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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Need for critical thinking
Private tuition is here to stay
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Need for critical thinking
Government resources are inadequate to meet the over-increasing demand for higher education in general and professional education in particular. Insufficient infrastructural facilities in the public sector. Unstable governments in the country, which are not able to pay attention to the long-term planning of higher education. Negligible political interference in private sector. The public sector cannot meet demands for expansion of education. The proportion of students taking higher education in India was 6 per cent but at present, it is rising at the rate of 12 per cent per year. Privatisation is the only option to compete with the globalisation of education, as skilled and competent persons are being employed in the private sector. A phenomenon growth of educational institutions has taken place in the recent past. After the mushrooming of engineering colleges, now it is the turn of B.Ed colleges in Punjab. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council has accredited 111 out of 306 universities and 1,910 out of over 15,000 colleges in the country in the last 10 years. To keep pace of accreditation in tune with the increasing number of educational institutions is a big challenge. The present situation of private institutions of higher education needs to be overviewed for the following reasons: The people advocating the privatisation of education are those who are no way academicians but can invest money to raise infrastructure. Their motive is to gain maximum profit. They charge huge fee from students and pay meagre salaries to teachers. Generally, these institutions employ underqualified teachers due to non-availability of well-qualified teachers. A teacher can’t produce better students until he is a man of high calibre, having good moral values. Due to unemployment, teachers are exploited by the owners. Due to mental as well as financial stress, teachers are unable to do justice to their profession. Private institutions take advantage of the existing loop holes while seeking recognition and affiliation, but later flout those rules which are not favourable to them. Students who can pay lakh of rupees get admission. Talent has taken the back seat, which is a great loss to the nation. General education is being sidelined by the private sector, only the professional courses like engineering, medical, information technology and production management are at the top of their priority list. Thus, higher education is not being acquired or expanded for its own sake but for the earnings promised by it. If education has to be privatised, there should be a strict check on quality of teaching. The government should take necessary steps before throwing education in the open market.
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Private tuition is here to stay
Private tuition is the most criticised aspect of our school education. Forget what has created this impression; the system has been in vogue for four decades, even though things have gone from bad to worse. Rural education in some of the states has crippled and national sport is far from being reckonable. Science and technology is way behind other nations. Even small countries like Israel and Korea are better off. I don’t know what the architect intended, but the system has not served its purpose. Private tuition has been thrust upon students in a big way. Before we implemented the present system in the mid 1960s, private tuition was looked down upon in the student community. Only a few went for it and that too surreptitiously. Now, every student that needs to do well in examinations must take private tuition. Once the students have discussed with each other all tutors in town, the good ones are quickly taken. Some principals have gone on record recommending private tuition. To bolster their image, schools allow their bright students to go for tuition during school hours. The present system requires the school to work for 200 days. At six hours per day, the students would get 1200 class hours. This time is not sufficient to do justice to the syllabus for any class. If one examines the syllabi and the prescribed books, one can easily evaluate the time required to read and understand all this. If the class work is conducted as per the rule, keeping an average student in view, it needs over 2000 hours to prepare a class for examination. If a student aspires to get more than 80 per cent marks, the time he or she should devote in classroom is over 3000 hours. I did this time evaluation in Gulbarga University when I was Principal of an engineering college there, so the assessment is based on experience. If it could be accomplished in less than this time, I’d be surprised, although I wish I were wrong. Government and public schools have eight teaching periods per day and each period is of 40 minutes. On Saturday, these institutions have six periods. Every day, one period is reserved for activities other than academics, which leaves seven periods of 40 minutes each and the class hours work out to 920 annually. Take away 180 hours for 20 days of annual tests and 10 days of half-yearly examinations (30x6). There are at least four parent/teacher meetings every year, which consume 24 hours (4x6). The four term tests during class hours for seven subjects eat into 18 hours. The effective class hours work out to be not 920, but 698 hours only, and we haven’t yet counted school functions and VIP visits etc. Inclement weather, unscheduled holidays and teachers’ absence due to personal reasons also put teaching on hold. The real teaching time does not exceed 600 hours. The student has no choice but to slog in the afternoon in the stuffy drawing room of the tutor and miss his evening sport. Is this not criminal? The urban students would manage, but those in rural areas and urban slums have no access to even this bare minimum education in classrooms. Thus, we have to make our basic education simple, inexpensive, meaningful and student-friendly. If that were done, the first thing that crumbles would be private tuition. So far, it’s holding because students have no choice.
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Haryana
Agricultural University A 120-day training programme on cotton production for agricultural experts is being organised by the Institute of Agricultural Technology Training and Education and Cotton Section of Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) here. Thirty agriculture officers, scientists and other experts of government departments are participating in the programme. According to Dr B.P.S. Lather, Chief Scientist (Cotton), HAU, who is also the coordinator of the training programme, the Union Government has provided Rs 10 lakh under the 10th Five-Year Plan for the event. “The motive behind the programme is to equip the farmers of the cotton-growing areas with the latest and potent technology so that they can get good returns,” he said. Of the 30 participants, 25 are from Haryana and five from Uttar Pradesh. After completing their training, all of them will act as facilitators and train other officials. The training is first of its kind and is aimed at long-term gains. The participants are being trained on various aspects of cotton production, including development of hybrid seeds, managing diseases and weeds and integrated pest management. They are also being taken to agricultural fields for some practical exposure. —
Sunit Dhawan Himachal Pradesh University
The shifting of a Professor and two Associate Professors from the International Centre for Distance Education and Open Learning (ICDEOL) of Himachal Pradesh University to the Political Science Department has caused much resentment among the teaching staff of the centre. It is for the first time that teachers have been transferred permanently along with post to the department. The ICDEOL Teachers Council has strongly opposed the decision, maintaining that the move will weaken the centre. There are over 40,000 students on rolls at the centre, including about 1,500 students in political science. The shifting of senior faculty members will particularly affect the M.Phil programme in the discipline. Dr H.S. Parmar, president of the council, said it was in the interest of the university that both regular courses and distance education programmes run smoothly. Faculty members of the centre had been providing their services for the regular courses as and when required. However, this time the teachers had been shifted along with posts without making any alternative arrangement. It would lead to permanent shortage of staff at the centre. The Vice-Chancellor, Dr L.R. Verma, said the transfers had been ordered in the interest of the institution and he was fully empowered to effect such transfers. — Rakesh Lohmi |
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The wave of privatisation is sweeping across the country and has penetrated all sectors of the economy. Therefore, it is bound to affect the education sector as well. Privatisation of higher education is an inevitable alternative to public effort to overcome the financial crunch for the following reasons: