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Going
beyond borders Campus
Notes Studyscape
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Going beyond borders AS
countries across the world invest in higher education, new areas of competition appear and act as an impetus for every stakeholder towards improving standards of excellence so as to compete in the global market, visualising a future, where students are trained to become active participants in the multifaceted cultural patterns of our world. The imperative before us is to come out of narrow compartmentalisation and look forward to a more interdisciplinary set-up with a well-coordinated interaction within the university and outside, so that narrow barriers are broken in the pursuit of knowledge and a single world. The foremost challenge before our higher education policy is to develop our capacity to share and generate knowledge regionally and internationally. To my mind, it is the mix of the home and international community within the university that helps to enrich the academic environment and best serve the larger vision of higher education in India to evolve into a global hub for intellectual engagement. International students bring with them varying cultures and ethos which make the rich Indian culture even richer and helps cross-border integration. Continuity blends with change, tradition with modernity. From the Indus valley to the iPod, India has seen it all. There is room here for all faiths, all languages, and all people. And dialogue across cultures in the academy becomes a humanising agency of beneficial social consciousness, thereby enhancing the idea of wider social concerns and effects. Within this context, the project of inquiry cannot be limited to the culture in which the university is located. A free thinker is a nomad, not a celebrant of any one cultural identity. In a cosmopolitan diasporic set-up, there comes the urgency to leap the fences of a constricted nationalism, overcoming any racial antagonism. Today’s world of globalisation is indicative of changing ethnic and cultural contours, where expatriate aloofness has to give way to plural cultural kinship and a universal vocabulary of a literary community belonging to many nations. In times when higher education is experiencing escalating expectation, we need to initiate serious thinking on what are the various aspects of excellence and how best to achieve them. Apart from excellence in institutions, international standards in research as well as promotion of creative ideas and innovative interaction among teachers and students beyond borders is vital to the vision for a more prosperous and peaceful tomorrow in the context of a globalised environment. Here we could emphasise the need to have more visiting fellowships as well as more scholarships and bursaries that would enable to incentivise many established and promising academics to share our joint pursuit of teaching and learning. First and foremost, there is a dire need to go to the roots of the problem of the ever-diminishing number of overseas students in universities around India. We need to evolve a coherent and a consistent policy, both at the college level and at the university level. An objective assessment of the problems faced by students is needed so that sufficient improvements can be made in various areas to finally have an impact on changing a system where there seems to be hardly any encouragement given to overseas students. In this context some important steps needed to be implemented, especially the simplifying of the admission process in our universities. The condition to qualify the entrance test to all departments of social science, arts and languages should be waived off for international students. This is important as, firstly, it becomes difficult for a student from a non-English speaking country to clear the entrance examination, and secondly, it discourages many to apply to the universities in India. Moreover, the physical presence of the overseas students applying to a course should not be necessary. The applicants should be informed by post or email of their eligibility and the confirmation of admission on the condition that the original certificates shall be verified before he/she is allowed to join the department. International students should be allowed to apply for admission and also pay their admission fee online. Apart from these few steps, additional 10 per cent seats may be reserved for international students in every department. A single window system can remarkably facilitate the admission procedures of overseas students. The long-stranding demand for a separate transit hostel or a mess that caters to an intercontinental community has been on the anvil without seeing the light of day. Apparently, the will to become an international university with students and teachers interacting from different nationalities seems to be a low priority of our regulatory bodies. The focus, therefore, has to be on “what we want” and “how we get it” — not for the short term and for narrow issues but rather for the long term and more comprehensive issues. We have to adequately advertise abroad our international standards and the academic standing of our faculty. We need to publicise our schools of humanities and sciences and arts together with some of the inspirational teachers and thinkers who have led and helped to shape various departments and the impact they have had on the wider world. Undoubtedly, over the years, there has been a steady progressive improvement in various areas of teaching and research and some universities in India have been playing a leading role in this region contributing to the intellectual life of generations of students both from India and abroad. Finally, we need to reflect on the rich extra-curriculum and social life of our country, and give the international community a lively sense of daily experience that generations of undergraduates and graduate students share. The bonds of ethnicity and culture, which hold together the peoples of this region, must remain as enduring as ever. To achieve this, the university has to work in partnership with educational organisations around the world and be ready to take necessary steps to achieve a close working relationship through exchange programmes. Our international competitors can become our close collaborators. Renewing links with universities around the world can bring together active citizens who become strong agents or ambassadors of change. For this, we must identify the world-class institutions from which we can gain in our enterprise of both teaching and research. Today’s world of globalisation is symptomatic of changing ethnic and cultural patterns, where expatriate aloofness has to give way to plural cultural affinities and a common vocabulary of a cosmopolitan community, reassuring us in our attempts to keep connected, mobilised and active in looking into various problems, cultural and academic. |
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Campus Notes DR K.R. Dhiman, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, was given a farewell party by the faculty members and university staff after his resignation was accepted by the Chancellor recently. Having served the university for four years and two months, Dr Dhiman failed to complete his second tenure and had to resign following pressure from various employee associations. Dr Dhiman in his speech urged the employees to cooperate with the new incumbent and said he had done whatever best was possible by him for the university’s welfare. Dr Dhiman was appointed in April 2008 by the previous BJP government. He was given a second term in 2011. Uncertainty over completion of his second tenure started gaining ground soon after the Congress government came to power in December last. Having earned the wrath of the employees for several controversial decisions like favouritism in appointments, abolition of 624 posts of non-teaching staff, an inquiry initiated by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau was probably the last nail in the coffin. Earlier, it was in 1997 that the then Vice-Chancellor Dr LR Verma, who had been granted a second term by the then Congress government, had an unsavoury exit following change in the government in 1998. He was the first Vice-Chancellor who had to quit about six months before completion of his tenure.
Lakehead University students visit campus
A delegation of eight students, comprising four girls and an equal number of boys from Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada, is on a ten-day visit of the university as part of an exchange programme. Dr R.C. Sharma, Dean, Horticulture, informed that the students would be taken to various research stations of the university in the state and shown plantations of various agro-climatic zones, including herbal garden. The university has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the exchange of scholars between the two institutes and this will help establish a protocol for the NRM Scholar Exchange Programme between the College of Forestry and Faculty of the NRM, Lakehead University. Applicable for a year, each institution can send four scholars to the other to participate in the programme that will last for four weeks. Pt. B.D. Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak A spiritual lecture on “Sonic Therapeutic Intervention and Self-Control” was organised at LT-1 Auditorium of the university recently. The lecture was delivered by Dr Bhakti Vasudev Swami from Iskcon, New York. Dr Vasudev, who is presently working on the strategies for awakening planetary consciousness by using Vedantic therapies, said India is blessed with a strong spiritual legacy and its cultural tradition is adored around the world. Addressing the gathering, he said self-control leads to social, economic and political stability. He stressed on controlling the senses which can be better used like the power of speech and can create a difference if used for constructive purposes. He said medicos must practice self-control to become good role models for society. He also proposed solution for self-control through sonic therapeutic intervention which implies the power of chanting the holy names of God, because spiritual sound vibrations cleanse the body mind and soul. — Contributed by Ambika Sharma
and Bijendra Ahlawat
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Studyscape COIMBATORE: The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will come out with a national perspective plan for technical education, by which the pattern and requirements of courses and seats would be decided by collecting data from states, a top official said. As there was problem in sanctioning new engineering colleges and closing of some colleges following less demand for courses and vacancies, AICTE has sent a circular to state governments to send their perspective plans, so that a national plan could be brought out, AICTE Chairman S.S. Mantha said here. Stating that only Maharashtra has responded “to some extent”, Mantha said he was expecting other states to respond at least in another six months, so that a national plan could be brought out three months thereafter. This would also help AICTE sanction colleges and courses according to the needs of the region and states, so that there would not be any closure of colleges and wastage of sanctioned courses, said
Mantha.
US students travelling to India
to study tribal population
WASHINGTON: Three American native students are travelling to India later this month on a six-month study tour to learn about the social economic changes in the tribal population of the country. The three students are from the University of Montana and are funded by the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative. In the fall, three Indian graduate students will also come to University of Montana for six weeks to learn about tribal culture in Montana. The students who have been selected for the tour are Kim Paul, Clay Burnett and Miranda Laber, the university said in a press release. Paul is an enrolled member of the Amskapi Pikuni Blackfeet Tribe. She is working towards her master’s in environmental chemistry, Native American studies and biomedical sciences. Burnett is a member of the Blackfeet tribe and is earning his MBA. Laber is a first-generation descendant of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Blackfeet Nation and is studying indigenous education and film. — PTI
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Shelley
Walia
Lakehead
University students visit campus