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Enhancing academic culture
Encourage children to speak Campus Notes
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Enhancing academic culture STOP Whining—Start Winning’ was the subject of a recent seminar at the British Library which became vital for focusing not on the lack of resources but on what to make of the existing resources that could enable us to move ahead. Retrogressive whining is a deterrent to any progress and fulfilling success. The limiting self-beliefs need to be overcome. Reforming education is like trying to disperse fog with a hand grenade: after the flash of the explosion, the fog comes back. Education remains a running disaster, and debate on it is either mendacious or hypocritical. For centuries we have been arguing for both humanitarian and intellectual reasons for the urgent need of a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry. But to what end? There has been a vast outpouring of theoretical ideas on education, a body of knowledge that is almost overwhelming. We need to uncover some of the deeper transformations occurring beneath all the surface turbulence and volatility and open up a terrain of debate as to how we might best interpret and react to our present condition. For instance, how do we best rely on the teachers and the system to at least treat the basics? Moreover, confidence in the examination system stands fully suspect. What matters is not what teachers/students know, but how they use it. Academicians, therefore, need to wake up to “what is going on and what needs to go on” and to help give direction, coherence and a rationale to how we teach and what we teach. Above all, we need to understand the nature of a university and what it means to search for knowledge, or discover even a single truth. The standards can never be too high. Many other things matter, of course but if learning, teaching and research were not the heart of the matter, why are we here? Therefore, the focus has to be on the three core pillars that define the overarching mission of the great universities of the world: the creation of knowledge, the dissemination of knowledge and the preservation of knowledge. We have to ask ourselves: are we proud of our strong learning traditions, our ability to move with the times and our energetic student community? Do our concerns flourish inside and outside the classroom? And do we value a wide range of approaches to learning? Such questions are of deep pedagogical concern to us. It is just not enough to know the rules of the game one is playing, but the game one is playing. Complacency inherent at the moment in smug conservatives, tired liberals and disillusioned radicals has to be countered by a culture of continuous progress to compete with an underpinning of commitment to international standards through higher levels of knowledge and skills within the societal needs. Unquestionably, innovations and sophisticated infrastructure along with a conscientious workforce are a sine qua non of a rapidly changing academic world. For the survival of higher education, one therefore needs accessibility, affordability and quality. Add to this a responsive administration, a streamlined maintenance of infrastructure along with a conducive learning climate and one can begin to see a revolutionary educational system rearing to alter the very civil society around us in which the combined strength of all its components will depend upon the symbiotic relation between pure research and practical application. It is also important to view the problem within the context of globalisation and ask: “Do we accept the scourge of neo-liberalism and become another corporate institution in which the new culprits of the market place co-opt the education system? Does education not stand for an uncompromising defense of the interests of the powerless, involving the renewal of social democracy on a national and international level?” Higher education is a type of collective intellectualism which has to defend the rights of the ordinary people, be aware of the view of the minority, of the individual and social movements, thereby providing the return of the academic through quality, excellence and equal access. A socially relevant system thus is always interlocked with both a sense of duty and rage, the two ideals of a collective intellectualism where the hope to trigger mobilisation never dies. Higher education is, therefore, intellectually driven with the pursuit to disturb, unsettle or make trouble through the bold interventionary stance across multiple lines of discipline. I see this as a new intellectual base of radicalism that refuses to retreat into the purely textual and always forces the dismantling of fiefdoms within the world of intellectual production. When such a system absorbs itself in progressive political readings of text, both in theory and practice, a new counter-culture of imagination is born that initiates the exciting move towards a pedagogy of de-schooling. In such a scenario, I envisage an extra dose of anti-academic fervour that stands against fixing concepts and practices which should always remain fluid. We have to resist assimilating ideas into the prevailing areas of academic sociology, i.e., a monopoly of reason that is ingrained in all hegemonic systems. Can we, therefore, have an education system that can resist violence and the arrogance of authoritarian concepts? Relevance of education becomes significant only when we begin to speak on ethics, truth and justice and base our intellectual activity on shared criterion, on shared standards of rationalism and on shared contexts of belief. Day in and day out, ad hoc policy decisions make the evolution of education wayward and fragmented. The education bureaucracy has its own axe to grind. Pedagogic self-reflection is missing and the absence of a coordinated policy at the national level shows our failure as a global powerhouse of education. The Knowledge Commission is there to give ideas for the sake of reform which is a far cry from progress. With politicians and civil servants as members of the Knowledge Commission, it is a roadmap with the recipe for inaction built into it. I see no national plan for reforms of the university system. Declining Ph.D programmes, paucity of lecturers and with no foolproof system of examination, I see all envisaged changes suggested by the HRD Ministry coming to naught. Introducing the grading system and interdisciplinary innovations at the university level, where sciences and arts have a possibility of coming together, are laudable moves, but in the absence of a larger and more structured national policy, I do not see where we are heading. To Gibbon and Aristotle progress meant bringing something to its perfect or natural end unlike mere improvement. Just talking of improvements will not take us to any tangibly felt advancement.
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Encourage children to speak PARENTS should turn the tables on their children and get their offspring to read aloud to them, a leading education trouble-shooter claims. Ofsted believes that encouraging young children to speak as well as read, both in class and at home, is essential. In an interview with The Independent, he says: “Get them to tell the story as well. Conversation is important to developing reading.” A new curriculum devised for primary schools by Sir Jim will be introduced from September 2011, and will stress the importance of developing speaking and listening skills as well as reading and writing. “My grandchildren are always saying ‘Grandad, tell us a story’,” he said. “The adult in that situation is much important than we realised. The adult can stimulate kids to read clearly, too.” Sir Jim, is anxious to look at the use of new technology in the classroom and improving teachers’ expertise amid claims that some pupils are better able to make use of computers than their teachers. “There is a lot of self-teaching going on when it comes to learning how to use technology,” he said. “Improving teachers’ knowledge of it is something we must very definitely keep on the radar.” He is worried that public spending cuts over the next few years could see a reversal of the gains made in education in the past decade, particularly the increase in the number of teaching assistants employed in schools. “They have been of great benefit in helping the teacher and I think it would be a pity if we went back to earlier years, when teachers had to do so many of the administrative tasks themselves,” he added. —
By arrangement with
The Independent
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Campus Notes THE fifth biennial Convention of Alumni Association of Haryana Agricultural University resolved to devise a strategy to make agriculture profitable. Addressing the opening session, the Minister for Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Cooperatives, Paramvir Singh, said though the nation had become self-reliant in agricultural production, farm scientists needed to develop cutting-edge technologies in order to exploit advantages offered by the WTO. He said continuous research and developmental efforts were required to ensure food and nutritional security on a sustainable basis. The minister said zero-tillage, laser levelling, bed planting, micro irrigation, modified biogas plants and integrated farming system be promoted amongst small and marginal farmers. He lauded HAU's contribution to increasing the agricultural production of the State by introducing new crop varieties, improved breeds, upgraded agro-technologies as also implements for diversification of agriculture. Vice-Chancellor K.S. Khokhar said agriculture and allied activities constituted the single largest component of India's gross domestic product, contributing nearly 18 per cent of the total. He said the tremendous importance of this sector to the Indian economy could be gauged from the fact that it provided employment to two-thirds of the total workforce in the country. The Vice-Chancellor said during the last decade, food grain production registered an annual compound growth rate of over 3 per cent. Now, he said, climate change and globalisation were the two main issues which needed attention of the scientists and policy planners of all nations. Guru Jambheshwar University of
Science & Technology, Hisar The GJU Teachers Association (GJUTA) has deplored the move to wind up the religious studies cell of the university which was engaged in comparative study of religions. GJUTA chief Rajesh Lohchab said the university had not filled the post of dean for a long time and now the head of the cell had been removed from membership of the Academic Council also. Besides, he said, a committee had recommended the winding up of the cell. Describing it as a deplorable move aimed at changing the very character of the institution, he said the GJUTA would never agree to the closure of the cell. GJUTA has also assailed the administration's decision to deny annual increment to a senior professor in connection with admission to a Ph.D course. Lohchab said the information brochure for admission to Ph.D courses for 2008-09 was never approved by the academic council although this was mandatory. Instead of acting against the then assistant registrar, the administration had acted against a senior teacher. He has warned that if the decision was not withdrawn, GJUTA will resort to agitation —
Contributed by Raman Mohan
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