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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Emotional intelligence key to success Use of Punjabi language-based software, tools demonstrated
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Emotional intelligence key to success EMOTIONAL intelligence is the latest development in understanding the relation between reasoning and emotion. It is the single most important factor in predicting success, while other important factors include technical skills, specific knowledge, mental abilities, physical fitness and physical appearance, interest in a particular type of work, aspirations and career goals as well as life circumstances that either support or hinder performance. The term ‘emotional intelligence’ was first introduced in 1990 by American University professors Dr John Mayer and Dr Peter Salovey who attempted to develop a scientific measure for knowing the difference in people’s ability in the areas of emotion. However, the credit for popularising the concept goes to another American psychologist Daniel Goleman (1995) who described emotional intelligence as an ability to appropriately identify, recognise and manage emotions for own well-being as well as people around you. According to the exponents of emotional intelligence, a person’ emotional make-up largely determines his or her professional success. Emotional quotient (EQ) is the most important determinant of professional and personal success in life. It is interesting to note that many people with high IQ fail, whereas those with less intellectual endowment are extremely successful. It is increasingly recognised that IQ may account for only about 20 per cent of a person’s success in life, while the remaining depends largely on emotional intelligence. EQ refers to a person’s level of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses social intelligence and emphasises the effect of emotions on our ability to view situations objectively and thus to understand ourselves and other people. It is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power of emotions, appropriately channeled as a source of energy, creativity and influence. Emotional intelligence refers to emotional awareness and emotional management skills which enable one to balance emotions and reason so as to maximise long-term happiness. It includes qualities such as self-awareness, ability to manage moods, motivation, empathy and social skills like cooperation and leadership. It is also the ability to understand emotions and their causes, the capability of effectively regulating these emotions in one’s self and others; and most importantly, being able to use emotions as a source of information for problem-solving, being creative and dealing with social situations. Emotional intelligence comprises many personality traits such as empathy, motivation, persistence, warmth and social skills. The question is, if emotional intelligence is so important in life, then how can we develop emotional intelligence among children? It can be either developed or decreased depending upon the type of environmental experiences one gets in day-to-day life. There is a great risk that an unhealthy and non-conducive environment at home or school hampers and mutilates the development of emotional intelligence among children. Introducing emotional intelligence as part of the syllabi can be a radical change. Lessons in the subjects of language, social studies and life sciences should be embedded with topics, which teach students the sense of emotional maturity, empathy, social skills, etc. They should also focus on personal qualities such as initiation, motivation and self-awareness. Emotional intelligence can also create an enthusiastic work environment, reduce stress levels and resolve emotional issue, improves the well-being of students and improve their relations all around. Today all efforts are being directed towards the development of cognitive skills, and not on emotional and social skills. Sports and physical activities should be made compulsory right from the primary level to the college level, because sports develop qualities and competencies like tolerance, tension reduction, stress management, sportsman spirit, self-confidence and conflict resolution, etc. Besides sports, many more co-curricular activities should be introduced in schools. School timetable should include classes, where students have the opportunities to utilise their surplus energy and potential into useful productive activities to be socially matured persons. A wide range of social and emotional learning programmes should be implemented in schools. These programmes can bring about a number of positive changes in students’ life for better academics, less aggression and less drug abuse. Adolescence is the most crucial stage for students, as this referred to as the age of stress and strain and changing strategies of life. Learning at this stage is not easy, as the adolescent faces many distractions and hurdles concerning his personal and social adjustment. Therfore, teachers must help students develop skills to manage their emotions, resolve conflicts non-violently and respect differences. Usually, emotional education of adolescents is left to chance. But if proper training is given to them, human competencies such as self-awareness, self-control, empathy and the art of listening, resolving conflicts and co-operation can be developed in them. The learning of these basic skills starts in the classroom. Later, students can apply what they have learned in schools to real-life situations through voluntary activities such as group discussion. The school staff should also work together to see that emotional intelligence is developed in the classroom as well as on the playfield. All this is done in an effort to give students practice in making emotionally smart choices. With practice, these skills can be accessed when needed most. Learning good emotional skills brings about healthy thinking patterns. They help children cope with day-to-day problems, so that they don’t develop into full-blown crisises. The parents can play an important role in developing emotional intelligence among children. Efforts should be made right from the time of infancy. Parents should not only be emotionally healthy but also be very careful to take their children’s feelings quiet seriously. Thus, the emotional development of the child has to be taken care of very cautiously for the development of adequate and judicious emotional intelligence. The writer is a former Head of the Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala |
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Use of Punjabi language-based software, tools demonstrated PATIALA: The Punjabi language-based software and tools developed by faculty members and research scholars of Punjabi University, Patiala, dominated the demonstration section in the recently concluded 24th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2012) held at IIT, Mumbai. According to Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal, Professor in the Department of Computer Science, Punjabi University, out of the 66 demonstrations of language-related software systems and tools accepted from more than 1500 submissions, six presentations are on the Punjabi language, which is the highest for any non-English language, followed by the Chinese, Arabic and Hindi languages. “For the first time, four new Punjabi language-related software systems were launched for pubic demonstration. These systems are: Punjabi text-to-speech system, automatic Punjabi text summarisation system, automatic Punjabi font detection system and an omni font Gurmukhi to Shahmukhi transliteration system,” informed Dr Lehal. The Punjabi text-to-speech system developed by Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal and Parminder Singh can convert any Punjabi text to speech and read out with high clarity. The automatic Punjabi summarisation system developed by Dr Lehal and Vishal Gupta can summarise any Punjabi document by reducing it to one-tenth of its original size while retaining the most important points of the original document. The Punjabi font detection system developed by Dr Lehal, Dr Tejinder Singh Saini and Savleen Kaur can automatically recognise any unknown font and convert it to unicode using linguistic and statistical analysis. The omni font Gurmukhi to Shahmukhi transliteration is capable of converting Gurmukhi text encoded in any known or unknown font to Shahmukhi. Besides these softwares, tools developed by team led by Vishal Gupta for domain-based classification and clustering of Punjabi text documents were also demonstrated. In addition, the Hindi part of speech tagger and Urdu stemmer developed by a research team led by Dr Vishal Goyal from Punjabi University Patiala were also demonstrated. More than 700 delegates from 60 countries participated in the prestigious conference, which was organised in India for the first time. There were 400 research presentations, including 66 demonstrations of language-related software systems and tools. — TNS |
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Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar Fellowship Award for Prof Bhardwaj THE National Environmental Science Academy (NESA), New Delhi, has conferred the "Fellowship Award 2012" on Dr (Mrs) Renu Bhardwaj, former Head and Professor, Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University. Dr Renu received the prestigious award for her research in the field of "Plant Stress Physiology, Phytoremediation and Environmental Sciences" at the 25th International Conference on Environment and Human Health held in New Delhi recently. She was awarded one plaque, citation, certificate and gold medal by Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, a renowned space scientist and former Head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), at INSA Auditorium, New Delhi on completion of 25 glorious years of NESA. Professor Renu has published more than 125 research papers in reputed national and international journals. She has also handled two minor and 11 major research projects funded by the UGC, CSIR, DST, MOEF and DBT.
Certificate course The Department of Lifelong Learning of Guru Nanak Dev University is going to start a six-month "Certificate Course in Cutting and Tailoring" for Class X pass unemployed women and girls. Dr Rajinderjit Kaur Pawar, Dean, Academic Affairs, and Director of the department, said interested candidates can apply for the course till December 27.
Youth fest winners honoured Guru Nanak Dev University honoured its student artistes along with other volunteers who had brought laurels by winning the overall championship trophy in the 28th North Zone Inter-University Youth Festival at a special function organised at Guru Nanak Bhavan Auditorium of the university recently. The “Guldasta-2012 Festival” was successfully organised by the university on its campus under the aegis of the Association of Indian University, New Delhi, and sponsored by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Detailing the achievements, Dr Jagjit Kaur, Director, Youth Welfare, said the university participated in 24 items of music, theatre, dance, literary and fine arts and emerged winner in 22 items. These students will now participate in the All-India Inter-University National Youth Festival scheduled to be held at the University of Kalyani, Kolkata, she said. Vice-Chancellor AS Brar, while congratulating the students and volunteers for the successful organisation of the youth festival, appreciated the talent of the youth displayed during various competitions. The Vice-Chancellor honoured the winners with trophies and certificate. —
Contributed by G. S. Paul |
