Are coaching centres necessary evil
Nonika Singh
Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal might have retracted his statement on increasing the cut-off percentage for the IIT entrance examination and left the decision to the IITs. Yet, there is no discounting the fact that once more he has raked in a new debate, this time over the coaching culture that has swamped the Indian education system. And plagued it too? Seriously are coaching institutes the bane of Indian education?

Generating job opportunities
D. S. Cheema
The recent experience of world economies having slowed down forcing employers to cut jobs has sent shivers down the spines of most of the job seekers. It is certain that job markets will get still tighter in times to come and the economic impact will become an only factor in the total game. Any improvement in the meltdown may not guarantee proportionate increase in the employment potential of hiring organisations. In any case, in very stiff competition, the “survival of the fittest” is the accepted norm. Our students have a mindset of seeking secure government jobs must undergo change, if they have to survive as employees working for others, as this source is bound to shrink drastically in the foreseeable future.

Campus Notes
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar
ICAR grant for commercialising technology
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has sanctioned a Rs 248 lakh project for Haryana Agricultural University to develop corporate culture on the campus and to facilitate commercial exploitation of technologies developed by varsity scientists. The project has been sanctioned under the National Agriculture Innovation Project ( NAIP).

• Chinese team’s visit

• HAU don for Japan

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Are coaching centres necessary evil
Nonika Singh

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal might have retracted his statement on increasing the cut-off percentage for the IIT entrance examination and left the decision to the IITs. Yet, there is no discounting the fact that once more he has raked in a new debate, this time over the coaching culture that has swamped the Indian education system. And plagued it too? Seriously are coaching institutes the bane of Indian education?

Guneeta Chadha, Head of Department of Fine Arts, Government College for Girls, Chandigarh, calls these teaching shops “dream sellers” that are catering to meet the aspirations of parents who want their children to excel at any cost.

So beg, borrow…. Parents driven by overweening ambition are willing to cough up the exorbitant fees that these coaching institutes demand. While the economic cost these institutes extract is visible and can perhaps be measured, what is not being understood is the long-term consequence of making students neglect school education and concentrate entirely on coaching. In their desperate bid to crack the entrance examinations, children are losing out precious years of holistic development, possible only in the school environment.

Mukesh Arora who runs coaching classes for classes IX and X, points out yet another important quality i.e. discipline that students can imbibe only in schools. He quips, “Schools are an integral part of education system that no coaching academy can ever replace.” So why are parents and students running after it? Precisely for they believe in the Chicago Tribune dictum “Who exactly seeks out a coach?  Winners who want even more out of life.” 

So much so that the first rebel insists Sukhmeen Bedi, Senior Lecturer, English, Khalsa College, Amritsar, whose teenage son has enrolled at a coaching centre, would be the child itself.

So, is coaching a bhed chaal, just another fad? Dr Atamjit Singh, Principal, ASSM College, Mukandpur, doesn’t think coaching is an exercise in futility and feels that these do serve a purpose, even if a limited one. He adds: “I am not suggesting that this is a perfect model of education. However, as long as the examination system will remain, so will these centres that are fulfilling their role of helping students take the entrance test.”

V K Singh who ran a coaching centre for eight long years, training students to clear JEE IIT as well as AIEEE, refuses to buy the “teaching shop” argument and asserts: “Why is there such a gnawing gap between what IITs expect and what is being taught in schools?”

Hmm…. if the coaching centres are indeed filling that void, doing such a wonderful job then why are the IITs complaining? It is now well-known that before Mr Sibal mooted the idea of giving weightage to board examinations ITTs had thought of revising the eligibility criteria. Agrees Singh that often the technique to master the entrance examination pattern has little co-relation with raw intelligence that IITs are looking for. So he calls for a uniform pattern of education and standardisation of syllabus if we are to find a system that is fair and judges on an equitable parameter.

Arora too asserts that unless and until disconnect between school education and the needs of higher education is addressed there is no wishing away the mushrooming of coaching academies.

Nods Dr Atamjit and says: “Often as an administrator of the college I am at crossroads whether to allow my students to bunk classes and attend coaching institute that will undeniably ensure better results, strictly from the examination point of view.”

Thus, damn them or not, coaching remains the khul ja sim sim magic mantra that will continue to open doors of prestigious institutions where the success rate is anyway low. As Dr Atamjit says, there are no readymade solutions or overnight cures to the ills that beset the paradigm of Indian education.

Measures as the one being envisaged by IITs are small but significant steps towards the change that is badly needed but won’t happen for a long time to come.

Generating job opportunities
D. S. Cheema

The recent experience of world economies having slowed down forcing employers to cut jobs has sent shivers down the spines of most of the job seekers. It is certain that job markets will get still tighter in times to come and the economic impact will become an only factor in the total game. Any improvement in the meltdown may not guarantee proportionate increase in the employment potential of hiring organisations. In any case, in very stiff competition, the “survival of the fittest” is the accepted norm. Our students have a mindset of seeking secure government jobs must undergo change, if they have to survive as employees working for others, as this source is bound to shrink drastically in the foreseeable future.

It is estimated that nearly 60-70,000 professionals pass out from approximately 300 professional institutions in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pardesh and UT Chandigarh. It is well known that more than 85 per cent of these pass-outs are not employable at international levels and only less than 30 per cent are employable in domestic markets. It is the same with students passing out from PG colleges with Master’s degrees. If they want, these states can easily get over the unemployment problem of the educated youth, by appreciating the problem and taking appropriate action to make the students employable. The students need to understand that working for others by seeking jobs is not the only way of earning one’s livelihood. Becoming entrepreneurs is far better a path to the same goal.

Since the students are the hope of a new India, the act of making them employable/ self-employed deserves to be on the list of priorities. It is essential to design, develop and implement a system to train students, so that they are either able to get employment in the ever-tight job market or be able to set up business activities and become entrepreneurs. The first step towards this goal is to understand what makes a student employable .It is an established fact that 70 per cent of the jobs are procured and later retained because of the soft skills of an employee. Most of the students focus on their hard skills and are good at them, however, such skills alone are not enough. There is something beyond these skills, which an employer is looking for in the candidate and that is called soft skills. Soft skills is a generic term used for personality, communication skills, people skills, EQ, etc. It is suggested that soft skills training must become a part of the syllabus. Theoretical and practical content of these skills should get sequentially increased as the student moves to higher levels of learning. All students of the final year must go through a specifically designed, intensive crash course of at least one-month duration, called Employment Orientation Module (OEM), which will have a major focus on the practice of soft skills. Specially trained teams of at least three suitable persons each (from within the resources of the institutions) should deliver the OEM at different nodal centres set up in institutions (preferably in rural areas) in all districts of the state .One expert should be selected to direct and co-ordinate the entire program in the whole state/UT. The participating institutions on equitable basis should share funds required for the programme.

Let’s now look at the vital aspect of training students to help them become entrepreneurs. Since most of the educated youngsters are not able to find suitable jobs, entrepreneurial education is the need of the hour. In fact, there is a widening gap and mismatch between education and employment. Becoming a job-giver rather than remaining a job-seeker should be the ultimate aim of any student. For this, a suitable entrepreneurship culture has to be generated in professional and other institutions. This culture needs to be nurtured from an early stage in the school, so that by the time a student passes his 10+2, he/she is able to do something related with a business activity if the student does not want to pursue higher studies.

A few guidelines listed here will be of great help. Firstly, entrepreneurship should be taught as a special subject from Class X onwards and made a compulsory subject of study in all professional and other courses from first year/semester onwards. Secondly, experts from relevant institutions and successful entrepreneurs of the region should be invited as regular/part-time faculty. Help and support from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and state governments, which have special funds for encouraging entrepreneurship, should also be availed. A cell in the institution can provide total support to the entrepreneur student. It can keep track of the activities of the budding entrepreneur for the first two years to ensure a high success rate. Thus, professional institutions and PG colleges not only have to teach, they must teach the students what makes them either employable or encourage them to become entrepreneurs.

Campus Notes
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar
ICAR grant for commercialising technology

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has sanctioned a Rs 248 lakh project for Haryana Agricultural University to develop corporate culture on the campus and to facilitate commercial exploitation of technologies developed by varsity scientists. The project has been sanctioned under the National Agriculture Innovation Project ( NAIP).

Vice-Chancellor, Dr. K.S. Khokhor who is also the project leader said that the project was first of its kind sanctioned by the ICAR to a state agricultural university. He said that the varsity scientists had done good work in developing technology and its commercialization. He said that under this project, the emphasis would be on linkage between industry and university so that the technologies generated by different departments of the university could be commercialized and return on investment realized in the long run. He said Director, Human Resource Management, Dr. R.K. Kashyap would be the controlling officer of the project. Associate Director (IPR), Dr. R.B. Srivastava would be its Principal Investigator (PI). Besides a team of 18 scientists from constituent colleges of the university would also be selected and trained at renowned institutions of business planning and development.

Chinese team’s visit

A 12-member Chinese delegation visited Haryana Agricultural University. The delegation was lead by Deputy Director of Guangshi Buffalo Research Institute, Huang Ziashian and included among others Deputy Director of Guangshi Animal Husbandry Station, Zu Lin and Manager, Guangshi Station of Animal and Poultry Breed Improvement, Huan Ziande. The delegation had come to study the kind of research done and techniques evolved that could be of relevance in their buffalo breed improvement endeavour.

The Vice-Chancellor said that HAU would welcome any proposal of collaborative research on buffalo and other animals from China. He said both China and India were good friends as well as neighbours and such kind of cooperation would further strengthen this bond. The Chinese team leader, Huang Ziashian said that due to low milk yield Chinese buffaloes were mostly used for meat purposes. However, keeping in view the growing demand for milk in China, buffalo could be a very good source of milk as in India.

HAU don for Japan

The International Science & Technology Institute of Japan has awarded Dr. R.S. Antil a prestigious fellowship to do research on soil organic matter quality and production of greenhouse gases in relation to land management and climate change. He will pursue this research at Chiba University of Japan for 10 months.

Earlier, Dr. Antil who is a senior scientist in the Soil Science Department of Haryana Agricultural University had also travelled to Sweden, U.K., Belgium, Netherlands and Austria on post-doctoral fellowships and conducted research on different soil nutrients.

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Recruitment of Officers (118 posts):
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Selection: Written Test; Interview

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Application Deadline: 16 November 2009

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Teaching & Education