Charting a new course
Shelley Walia
Students must have the freedom to combine courses in literature and cultural studies with those from other subjects
EDUCATION has to be regarded as a process of reflection in the midst of a struggle to create a new social order. It is a process of liberating people towards active participation in the historical process and societal transformation. The academy incessantly experiences upheavals under the pressure of political turbulence and transformation that have a deep impact on policy decisions and the future of education in our country, especially when it is passing through a phase of extraordinary expansion.

50 per cent of adults in UK can’t do basic maths
Richard Garner
ALMOST half the adults in England only have the maths skills of a primary school child, according to a report. Figures show that while literacy rates are improving, the number of adults who have numeracy skills no better than those expected of an 11-year-old has shot up from 15 million to 17 million — 49 per cent of the adult population — in the last eight years.

Campus Notes
Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
CSIR-UGC NET exam
SIX students of the Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences of the university have qualified the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)- University Grants Commission (UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) examination. The CSIR in association with the UGC conducts the NET twice a year to promote scientific research and development. Dr Prabjeet Singh, Head of the Department, said Vedangana Saini, Bharat Bhushan Singh, Navjot Kaur, Vasundhera, Chandni Sidhu and Muskan Gupta were among the successful candidates.

• Admission Deadline

Charting a new course
Shelley Walia

Students must have the freedom to combine courses in literature and cultural studies with those from other subjects

Bridging the gap between disciplines would take us towards a university without walls where the arts would flourish alongside the sciences

EDUCATION has to be regarded as a process of reflection in the midst of a struggle to create a new social order. It is a process of liberating people towards active participation in the historical process and societal transformation. The academy incessantly experiences upheavals under the pressure of political turbulence and transformation that have a deep impact on policy decisions and the future of education in our country, especially when it is passing through a phase of extraordinary expansion.

I fully agree with Hannah Arendt that we are living in “dark times”, when there is a need to emphasise the value of education to the world that we engineer for future generations.

As Arendt wrote many decades ago, and what holds true today, “Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.”

In times when higher education is experiencing rising expectations, we need to initiate serious discussion on reform initiatives in higher education, especially with a focus on promotion of creative ideas, on systems of governance, especially financial management and finding effective systems of transparency in decision-making and decentralisation at all levels.

It is a process of ushering in a new era of significant qualitative and quantitative changes that would give an impetus to the socio-economic cohesion in the country. Economic growth and national development would thus depend on not only introducing a culture of excellence but ensuring equal access to all in a “knowledge-based economy”.

Since the reforms have to take place at the university level, we need to keep in mind large-scale challenges as well as collective commitment and social responsibility of higher education. This is a strategic imperative for the university governance and leadership that would enable it to formulate a policy on the basis of research, innovation and creativity.

Academics need to make concentrated efforts to effect both deep and equitable changes. It calls for a focus on liberation, justice and activism. The emphasis is on transformation. Our understanding of the progress and difficulties faced by higher education will contribute to a vision that takes us to areas of research geared towards eradication of poverty, promotion of sustainability and realising that higher education is a responsibility of all actors involved in it, and is vital for the advancement of the understanding and solving of today’s challenges.

Over the last few months, I have been meeting colleagues across the discipline, discussing and thinking together to plan for the future with a collective effort that would ensure a much-needed vitality not in individual pursuits but in our joint efforts towards common goals and overall directions in research and innovations, faculty development and internationalisation in higher education.

We all have a stake in the shaping of the world of ideas with a commitment towards changing the future academic landscape and realising our new role for increasing the institutional capacity of our place of work.

The quality and accomplishment of teachers, scholars and researchers will be the driving force towards a new education policy and a determination that will help in bringing a society that believes in the promotion of a welfare state and justice. Along with this, reform initiatives in setting up inter-university centers, restructuring academic programmes, expansion of research programmes, promoting autonomy and accountability as well as framing inclusive policies and programmes will go a long way in moving forward to new frontiers in education.

Over the years, there has been a rather lopsided bias towards promoting the sciences at the cost of neglecting the humanities, arts and social sciences. This needs to be examined, so that adequate measures are immediately taken to prevent any further neglect of these areas which are so vital to our civilisation. Science can be put on a podium, but like the humanities it has to be scrutinised critically. In such a set up, the recognition of the rising importance of engineering and technology in our society is not overlooked, but a passionate involvement in bridging the gaps between disciplines would take us towards a university without walls where the arts would flourish alongside the sciences.

In the days to come, students must have the freedom to combine courses in literature and cultural studies with those of other subjects, say the performing arts, mass communication and journalism, which are complementary in nature. Such diverse intellectual endeavours address numerous questions pertaining to different theoretical and political positions and help in reinvigorating institutions that have a propensity to wilt if constant attention is not given to innovation and quality. Advanced interdisciplinary study of this nature, therefore, is committed to social reconstruction. The aim is always to understand and change the structures of closed and compartmentalised disciplines where the areas of science, media, literature, and technology are of utmost significance. The unevenness must be addressed swiftly by restructuring the curricula to meet the increasing domestic and international needs for experimentation and inquiry, and for a system that stands for access and equity without ignoring efficiency and competence.

As pointed out by Noam Chomsky, “Education is a vital weapon of a people striving for economic emancipation, political independence, and cultural renascence. A truly emancipatory and democratic educational system could only emerge from a broad-based people’s movement that was dedicated to the needs of its people and expressive of their aspirations.”

However, any attempt to homogenise education stands rejected for not taking diversity into account. This problem is visible in educational institutions in the country which come under the impact of relocation of different communities and deserves a less blinkered, more vivacious and more multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic approach to education.

These are but a handful of examples of initiatives that we need to focus on at the start of the new millennium. We are more than a decade into it and drawing closer to upgradation and expansion of facilities and adapting programs of education to the needs and opportunities of changing times.

From nanotechnology to fine arts, from interdisciplinary science to humanities and languages, and in many other related fields of social and political significance, we have innumerable opportunities to appropriate ways for improving the quality of education in our country.

However, in spite of the initiatives already taken there are still many drawbacks, especially in the areas of curriculum designing through flexibility and inter-disciplinary orientation, faculty improvement programmes and the examination system which calls for a closer attention and a national debate. The enormity of the challenge has to be faced.

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— Pervin Malhotra, www.careerguidanceindia.com

50 per cent of adults in UK can’t do basic maths
Richard Garner

ALMOST half the adults in England only have the maths skills of a primary school child, according to a report. Figures show that while literacy rates are improving, the number of adults who have numeracy skills no better than those expected of an 11-year-old has shot up from 15 million to 17 million — 49 per cent of the adult population — in the last eight years.

Part of the problem, according to National Numeracy, a new charity launched last week, is that it has become socially acceptable to boast of poor mathematical skills.

The consequences are jeopardising both the economy and individuals’ ability to understand the pay and deductions on their wage slips.

Chris Humphries, chairman of National Numeracy and former chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said: “It is simply not acceptable for anyone to say ‘I can’t do maths’.

“It is a peculiarly British disease we aim to eradicate. It tends not to happen in other parts of the world and it’s hitting our international competitiveness.”

A poll carried out for the new charity of 2,000 adults by YouGov found that while 80 per cent would be embarrassed to tell someone they were bad at reading and writing, only slightly more than half (56 per cent) would feel ashamed to say they were bad at maths.

Yet Humphries insisted that numeracy was, in fact, more important than literacy to one’s future, as demonstrated by three recent studies.

“All three concluded that numeracy was a bigger indicator of negative outcomes than literacy,” he said. “This was a bit of a surprise to the basic skills world but not to us. There is a strong correlation between lack of numeracy and multiple disadvantages.”

He added: “People with poor numeracy are twice as likely to be unemployed while 65 per cent of young people in jail have the lowest levels of numeracy.”

He put the problem down to the fact that improvements in basic skills had focused on literacy, partly because a large publishing industry was prepared to invest in improving reading skills while further education colleges struggled to find enough maths teachers.

“There are not enough well-trained numeracy teachers. Those with a strong background in mathematics have far better opportunities outside teaching”.

Mass use of calculators only had a limited effect, added Humphries. “Even with calculators they can’t do these problems because they don’t have enough understanding to interpret problems or analyse them,” he said. — The Independent

Campus Notes

Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
CSIR-UGC NET exam

SIX students of the Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences of the university have qualified the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)- University Grants Commission (UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) examination. The CSIR in association with the UGC conducts the NET twice a year to promote scientific research and development. Dr Prabjeet Singh, Head of the Department, said Vedangana Saini, Bharat Bhushan Singh, Navjot Kaur, Vasundhera, Chandni Sidhu and Muskan Gupta were among the successful candidates.

DNA damage prevention

The Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences of the university organised a lecture on "Public Health Genomics and DNA Damage Prevention" recently. The lecture was presented by Dr Michael Fenech, a renowned cytotoxicity expert from the Common Wealth Industrial and Research Organisation, Adelaide, Australia. Dr Fenech said psycho-sociological changes, nutritional habits and exposure to stress were leading to chromosomal irregularity and cancers. He discussed how nutritional control and regulation of vitamins, minerals and other essential food components could reduce or add on to carcinomas in humans.

Seminar on diseases

The Department of Human Genetics organised a UGC-SAP-sponsored national seminar on "Genomics of Complex Diseases" at the Conference Hall of the university recently. About 40 scientists from various parts of the country participated in the seminar. In her presidential remarks, Dr Rajinder Kuar Pawar, Dean, Academic Affairs, highlighted the progress made by science and technology in the field of health. She said in India 80 per cent deaths among adults were mainly due to complex disorders caused by change in lifestyle. Dr B.K. Thelma, Head, Department of Genetics, Delhi University, South Campus, spoke on the topic "Ayurgenomics—A Panacea to Complex Trait Research". She also discussed about her research work on Amravata that is rheumatoid arthritis. Dr Sunita Singh from the Department of Zoology, Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, highlighted the current scenario of genetics of type-2 diabetes. She said type-2 diabetes was one of the major causes of blindness and kidney failure among adults.

— Contributed by G. S. Paul

Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Management & Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, A 4, Paschim Vihar, Rohtak Road, New Delhi 110063
www.bvuniversity.edu.in / www.bvimr.com

Application Form & Details: Website.

Medicine

University of Delhi, Faculty of Ayurvedic & Unani Medicines, 6th Floor, VP Chest Institute Building, Delhi 110007
www.du.ac.in / www.fmsc.ac.in

Scholarships

Sciences – General

Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad (IIIT-A), Devghat, Jhalwa, Allahabad 211012 (UP) (Deemed Univ)
www.iiita.ac.in / phd.iiita.ac.in

Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore 560012 (Kar)
www.iisc.ernet.in/ug

Application Form & Details: Website