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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Academic turns activist
Invest in early childhood education
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Academic turns activist
These are indecisive times for literary intellectuals. The split between the theorist and the public critic has led to a divide in culture where literary studies have become bogged down with eccentric scholarship, dense terminology and politically motivated cultural studies, compelling the common reader to a position of irrelevance. This is the cultural-academic crisis of our time which has brought about a divide between politics and aesthetics, between social ideas and literary values. With so much fascination for criticism, it has often been feared in the last few years that interest in literature might be displaced by the obsession with “sinister aesthetic ideology” which concerns itself more with evaluation, canon formation and academic instruction, and ignores the relationship between academic labour and political change.
In recent years, the rise of New Criticism, formalism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis and deconstruction gave way to a politically conformist environment whereby the role of dissidence in society was completely ignored. New Criticism remained content with the status quo and post structuralism had no qualms in remaining silent in the face of war or infringement of human rights across the world. The project of literary theory has therefore floundered. I say this because I feel it has been constrained by a narrow pedagogical concern with no impact whatsoever on a world ridden by ruthless economics and genocidal terrorism. Interestingly, a student at a conference in Chicago University a few years ago asked: “What good is criticism and theory if we concede how much more important the actions of Noam Chomsky are in the world than all the writings of critical theorists combined?” Sander L. Gilman, a professor of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, replied, “I would make the argument that most criticism—and I would include Noam Chomsky in this—is a poison pill. I think one must be careful in assuming that intellectuals have some kind of insight. In fact, if the track record of intellectuals is any indication, not only have intellectuals been wrong almost all of the time, but they have been wrong in corrosive and destructive ways.” Can critical practice which is handled by intellectuals then play a constructive or transformative role? Can an intellectual, by joining the academia operate outside it? It was Homi Bhabha who remarked: “There are a number of people around the table here and a number of people in the audience, in fact most of you here are evidence that intellectual work has its place and its uses. Even a poem in its own oblique way is deeply telling of the lives of the world we exist in. You can have poems that are intimately linked with political oppositional movements, poems that actually draw together people in acts of resistance.” Until the 1970s, politics had still not found its place in the formal reading of teachers who remained obsessed with the all-pervasive dominance of canonical texts. Unbiased “wisdom” in the field of interpretation, and not the individual commitment of the interpreter, had kept politics securely out of the Humanities. As with other conservatives, it was the opinion of many that any change in the canon would embroil society in socio-economic problems and therefore urged the academic to stay apolitical. But it has to be understood that no work of literature or literary studies is indisputably apolitical. For instance, the very teaching of literature in the colonies had the underlying agenda of promoting the ruling power interests of the Empire. I wonder, therefore, whether one can outrightly reject the schools of post-structuralism or, for that matter, any of the “postist” ways of looking at the world. Master narratives of neoliberal capitalism that visibly point towards the end of history and ideology, of world-wide terrorism that threatens the western way of life now stand as dominant forces in our global history where incredulity towards them has to be replaced by a strident and ambitious plan of political order for altering the very structural underpinnings of our society that allows the emerging of such terrible movements. It has been regretted that all that had been envisaged in the cultural studies programme has not stood up to its original ambitions. In a world taken over by Anglo-American unilateralism, as well as the underlying smugness of the affluent, an engaging involvement with theory can be a “formidable presence” in our society. Religion and revolution, evil and the metaphysical question of survival in a war-ridden world where humanitarianism is at its lowest ebb, cultural theory has to be incorporated in the very analytical skills of a student so that it becomes a revolutionary pedagogical practice adequate enough to build a temperament of oppositional thinking. The rejection of objectivity has at least lent an impetus to the students of cultural theory to face up to the problematic nature of the human subject or the capitalist strategies of hegemony. Thus arose the need for understanding the contemporary imbroglios of technology and politics so as to move away from political apathy towards critical realism, with the purpose of equipping students with the analytical tools and philosophical grounding for the social sciences and humanities geared towards understanding the relevance of knowledge and power. A socialist society where the primary existence of an unexploitative community that respects fundamental human rights and an ethical social framework is what must be the chief concern of a theoretical paradigm that demands a rigorous and expansive place for coming to grips with the reality of exploitation, violence and social engineering, as well as a willingness to entertain new ways of understanding various and multiple discourses that operate in our world thereby recognizing the play of domination and resistance with the motivation of cultivating a campus environment where students think critically, participate in constructive dialogue and engage in meaningful contemplation. The urgent need of the hour is to call upon professors to go beyond the private, academic or technical terms to the “public sphere” and to the sphere of the citizen rather than that of the narrow specialist so as to foster awareness, respect, and appreciation for a diversity of experiences, interests, beliefs and identities. That is what, maintains Stanley Fish, “intellectual work is all about, the evaluation, not the celebration, of interests, beliefs, and identities; after all, interests can be base, beliefs can be wrong, and identities are often irrelevant to an inquiry.” |
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Invest in early childhood education
Investment in Early Childhood Education (ECE) is crucial for every country and will give the best returns in the form of best social structure and human resource, said Dr Ellana Yalow, vice-chairperson of the Knowledge Learning Cooperation, USA.
The returns in the form of benefits the society gets with the investment on early childhood education is immense and politicians should realise it, Yallow said while speaking on “Opportunities and Challenges in ECE’ at the Global Conference held in Mumbai recently. Yalow said the education process in cognitive, skill and language develops in a child from zero to five or even before birth and therefore it is important to give a comprehensive and quality care to a child. “India has the world’s largest child population and it is critical this large human resource pool gets a good start in education,” she said adding that neuroscience studies have clearly demonstrated that experiences in early childhood have a significant impact on brain development. The nature and quality of a child’s experiences from birth to six establish the foundation for future cognitive and social development, she said. When asked that in India the age that is fixed for right to education is six, Yalow said, “it is too late as the between zero and three years, 70 per cent of the brain develops in a child and if proper environment is not provided for an overall development of a child before six years, you are risking the development of not only a child but the society as a whole and the nation”. The investment made in ECE gives returns in the form of preventing drop-outs and thus teenage pregnancy and juvenile crime. It definitely improves appropriate development of children who are the future of the world, she said. Yalow said in US her corporation has 1,800 pre-school under various brand names and the age group include infants from six weeks of age to 12 years. Quoting Nobel Laureate Professor James J Heckman’s equation on human capital development as a solution for securing economic future, Yalow said Heckman has proven that there are great economic gains to be had by investing in early childhood development. “His groundbreaking work with a consortium of economists, developmental psychologists, sociologists, statisticians and neuroscientists showed that early childhood development heavily influences health, economic and social outcomes for individuals and society at large, she said. Jeremy Williams, the Singapore-based Chief Academic Officer of Knowledge Universe who owns several pre-school organisations said that he would like to partner with India in ECE. “We are key players in ECE and we are planning to partner with Indian players. We are watching closely the changes in policies in India,” he said adding that “we need to understand Indian needs and we can not replicate what we are doing in other countries here.” “We want to come here (India) and work for the benefit of future human capital,” Williams added.
—PTI |
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Campus Notes
The Home Science Extension Education Department of CCS Haryana Agricultural University in collaboration with Academy of Agricultural Research and Education Management (AAREM) organised a short course on production of educational videos. It was aimed at training teachers, scientists and extension experts from farm varsities of Haryana and Karnatakta in producing educational videos. Dr. Saroj Jeet Singh, Dean, College of Home Science, said teachers, scientists and extension education specialists should have expertise in video production to make full use of new technology in teaching, research and extension activities. Course director, Dr. Nishi Sethi said that the short duration course aimed at developing creativity essential for producing good videos. The participants were exposed to production and post-production techniques, script writing, video mixing, editing and dubbing. Genomics tools training A three-week training course on ‘genomics, transformation and molecular marker tools’ concluded at Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) in which 17 scientists and students from different institutions across the country participated. The training was organised by the Biotechnology and Molecular Biology Department of the university. Dr. Santosh Dhillon, Dean, College of Basic Sciences & Humanities who was chief guest in the valedictory function said that biotechnology was the frontier science of the 21st century which had great potential to solve complex problems of agriculture such as drought, salinity, high temperature and mineral and nutrient deficiency of crop plants. She also underlined the need for such trainings in improving knowledge and skills of scientists and students. The course was inaugurated by HAU Director of Research, Dr. R.P. Narwal. Vet clinic gets new director Dr Kuldeep Singh, a former Head of the Veterinary Surgery and Radiology department has been named as the new Director of HAU Veterinary Clinic. He has been with the university for the past 33 years. Meanwhile, a former Dean of College of Agriculture Dr S. S. Pahuja has been appointed as Director of Campus School on extension for a year. |
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Admission Deadline
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10+2; Data entry speed: 8,000 key Depressions per hour. Exam: 31 October 2010 Application Form: Download from website Details: Employment News (17 – 23 July 2010) / Website Application Deadline: 20 August 2010 Scholarships Social Justice & Empowerment Department, Haryana, SCO No. 68-70, Sector 17 A, Chandigarh www.socialjusticehry.nic.in / www.minorityaffairs.gov.in Pre-Matric Merit
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