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Self-governance
in higher education Campus
Notes Studyscape
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Self-governance in higher education IT is well known that there is smugness in the passion for status quo. However, the battles have been severe in the academia, complicated by the university’s disturbed, ever-changing nature. At a historical stage of interminable theoretical discourse, when departments and long-established disciplines are being structurally reconstituted, ground-breaking courses that centre on criticism as a social and cultural practice become momentous. Education is now less a concern with conventional courses and more a confrontation with the multiplicity of transnational cultural schemes and texts. Such a task sets out to position humanities in relation to culture and within larger enriching formations. It is envisaged that the innovative programmes to be introduced at the university level to take us into an encouraging future would be designed to provide grounding in the theoretical debates that inform present-day investigations in a number of areas such as subjectivity, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, evil, barbarism and ecology. Working within multiple contextual formations in a globalised world, various disciplines in the social sciences will provide an understanding of ideology with the necessity of attaining cultural knowledge of a market-driven world. Interestingly, Slavoj Zizek argues that the old saying ‘Talk less and do something’ was countered by ‘doing too much’ by way of environmental degradation and interventions in both nature and in the developing world. The lesson learnt is to sometimes do less and think and talk more so as to ‘think things through’. Too much of ‘doing’ can become an escape from talking about the problem. We are at a stage where it is fundamental to adjust the specialised intellectual work in the academy because, as Edward Said has also argued, it speaks increasingly to itself rather than the world of everyday life and common needs. Such specialisation and methodology has a tendency towards a doctrinaire set of assumptions and a language of professionalisation allied with cultural dogma and a “surprisingly insistent quietism”. Therefore, to enable departments in the university to move ahead, it is important that autonomy and freedom is given to them in the field of curriculum designing, innovative pedagogy and evaluation, thereby doing away with bureaucratic half-baked policies emerging from state and central agencies dealing with matters educational. Autonomy of an educational institution is the stamp of a progressive academic milieu. This autonomy is related especially to taking decisions regarding the academic affairs of an institution rendering it free from the restraints that check its progress. The immediate requirement for university departments is to introduce courses at the postgraduate and doctoral levels which can reach up to international standards. As we very well know, various departments have always been caught in the turmoil of being dependent upon other affiliated institutions which thwart any bold changes in the syllabi or in making a course more rigorous and innovative. This atmosphere of excessive dependency on a system that gears to having a common workable syllabus at the department of a university, college department and students of correspondence studies disallows the required freedom to experiment and introduce new courses as well as reframe the existing ones so as to compete in the international market. We must ensure that we do not smother the liberal decision-making powers of any department at the university. Whether it is the creative output of the faculty or the freedom to introduce new courses in the department, the systemic and dependant functioning hampers the onward march and the growth of higher education. Countering the overpowering influence of having a common curriculum with other affiliated institution so as to meet the demand for innovation, the degree awarded to the postgraduate students of the university could be altered to an MA (Hons.). This decision has been floating around in a nascent form since a long time in our discussions within the university. However, it has been rather impossible to execute it due to the constraints of being aligned to a system that retrogressively disallows postgraduate studies to forge ahead. The move, if brought into action, will be of immense advantage to the student community, broadening the viability of their future options in the job market, besides giving various departments at the university level a distinguished platform, thereby moving its academic stature to new global frontiers. The most rational argument in favour of granting a self-governing status to a department is the natural and obvious need for ensuring academic distinction owing to the introduction of innovative programmes and timely radical changes without bureaucratic delays, and to let its functions, powers, courses and academic environment be appropriate to its position as a university department. If the functioning of the departments of a university is straitjacketed under an overwhelmingly rigid system, then there are no distinguishing parameters on the basis of which a university locates itself within centres of higher learning. A university is an open field of progressive and intellectual resources and thus cannot and will not progress if its liberal atmosphere is torn apart by restrictions imposed on it by moribund machinery. We need to take a cue from the working of departments in distinguished universities around the world, so that the syllabi and courses are brought in sync with the latest trends in education. This is only possible once the university departments release themselves from the vice-like grip of existing systems that allocate little room for moving ahead. Combining critical theory with sociology, history, anthropology and politics is to clearly consider the cross-section of the existing debate on the contours of the postdisciplinary university, including the affirmative aspects of arts, popular culture and social sciences as the new organising code of scholastic work. This process offers a novel perspective of the way that teaching and research institutions are evolving in response to contemporary movements, social forces, and the increasing need of innovative programmes within transcultural locations in a globalised world. |
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Campus
Notes A national seminar on "Punjabi Manuscripts" was organised for the first time in Punjab by Bhai Gurdas Library of Guru Nanak Dev University here recently. More than fifty scholars presented their research papers during at the seminar on different aspects like availability of Punjabi manuscripts at different places, methods to preserve these manuscripts, conservation methods, preservation of brittle and fragile manuscripts, microfilming, digitisation, use of natural herbs and leaves to protect manuscripts, and factors responsible for deterioration of manuscripts. Dr A.K. Thukral, Director, Research, presided over the valedictory session, while Dr H.S. Chopra, librarian, Bhai Gurdas Library, welcomed the chief guest and others. All the delegates participated in the seminar were of the view that a database of all the manuscripts in Punjabi should be prepared. These manuscripts are scattered allover India and more than 600 manuscripts are available in European countries, USA, Pakistan, Samarkand, etc. Dean presents paper on football medicine
Dr Jaspal Singh Sandhu, Dean, Faculty of Sports Medicine of the university, and member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) participated in a four-day seminar on "Football Medicine Regional Course". The seminar was organised recently by the All-India Football Federation (AIFF) in association with the Indian body FIFA and the Asian Football Federation for the Central and South regions in New Delhi. Dr Jaspal presented his research paper on "Stem Cell Therapy, Tendinopathies and Young Soccer Player's Injuries". In his lecture, Dr Jaspal said over the last few years, stem cells had evoked intense interest among the researchers who tried to provide the basis for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Dr Jaspal said AIFF had taken note of the increasing importance of sports medicine in modern-day football, without which it was virtually impossible for a player to maintain peak fitness through a full session. Professor Jiri Frantisek Dvorak, Chief Medical Officer, FIFA; Dr Gurcharan Singh, Chairman, Medical Department, AFC, Malayasia; Prof. Brun Shane Perry from Australia; Dr Patrick Yung from Hong Kong were the key speakers at the seminar.
Meerut varsity win
overall trophy
The CCS University of Meerut won the overall trophy of the All-India Inter-University Shooting (Men & Women) Championship, which concluded at the shooing range of the university recently. In the men's section, Punjabi University, Patiala, remained second, while Panjab University, Chandigarh, stood third. In the women's section, Delhi University, Delhi, got the second position and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, stood third. As many as 374 shooters from 45 universities participated in the championship.
Refresher course
A refresher course in library and information science was organised at the Academic Staff College of the university recently. The course was inaugurated by Dr H.R. Chopra, former Professor, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Professor Amritpal Kaur, Head, Department of Library and Information Science, and course coordinator, briefed the participants about the thrust area of the course. In his inaugural address, Prof. H.R. Chopra highlighted various problems faced by digital libraries. — Contributed by G. S. Paul
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Studyscape WASHINGTON: There is an effective way of raising your kids’ IQ — just supplement their diets with fish oil, send them to quality pre-school and also engage them in interactive reading, vouches a new study. A team led by John Protzko, a doctoral student at the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, combined the findings from existing studies to evaluate the overall effectiveness of each type of intervention. Collaborating with his professors Joshua Aronson and Clancy Blair, Protzko analysed the best available studies involving samples of children from birth and kindergarten from their newly assembled “Database of Raising Intelligence”, the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science reports. “Our aim in creating this database is to learn what works and what doesn’t work to raise people’s intelligence,” said Protzko.
Rise in pupils’ violent behaviour
in British schools
LONDON: There is rise in violent behaviour of pupils in British schools. Latest figures have revealed an average 40 primary schoolchildren are expelled every day for attacking the school staff. The violence is so endemic that exclusions for assaulting teachers are now more common in primaries than in secondary schools, Daily Mail reported. A total of 8,030 pupils, aged five to 11, received the sanction in 2010-11, which is a 15 per cent rise over four years, according to official statistics. According to teaching unions, the statistics could be an underestimate since the staff are discouraged from reporting assaults for fear of damaging their school’s reputation.
Schoolchildren consider
bullying ‘cool’
WASHINGTON: Whether it is physical violence or spreading rumours, bullying is considered “cool” and contributes to the popularity of middle school students, says a psychology study. Psychologists from the University of California, Los Angeles, studied 1,895 ethnically diverse students from 99 classes at 11 Los Angeles middle schools. They conducted surveys at three points: during the spring of seventh grade, the fall of eighth grade and the spring of eighth grade. Each time, students were asked to name the students who were considered the “coolest”, the students who “start fights or push other kids around” and the ones who “spread nasty rumours about other kids”. Those students who were named the coolest at one time were largely named the most aggressive the next time, and those considered the most aggressive were significantly more likely to be named the coolest the next time, the Journal of Youth and Adolescence reports. — IANS
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