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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Trusting the school Equip classroom for creativity
Campus Notes
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Trusting the school THE most important part of our lives is spent bringing up our children. We, as parents, give them the best opportunities since their birth. Right from extra-curricular activities to every aspect of education, parents are actively involved in decision-making. With the trend of having fewer children, the parents pin all their hopes on their children. Thus, there are more expectations, more dreams and more pampering.
In today’s competitive world, parents want their children to touch the sky. The result is, they rush their children from one class to another. Every child is seen as a ‘Sachin’ or a ‘Mary Kom’ in the making. This leads to undue pressure on children who have to justify their parents’ effort, time and money spent. Parents devise various methods to get the best out of their children. Some adopt the carrot-and-stick policy, while there are others who try to please the children by becoming over-friendly with them. This leads to a strange relationship between the children and their parents and all the elders they come across in their lives. Parental authority is confused with friendship, and this extends to all relationships. The biggest repercussion of this confused relationship is on the school and teachers. Once the children step out of their homes onto the school campus, they have to follow a certain regimen. A child who might be single at home is forced to share space with many. Each child is precious in one’s home but has to struggle with other equally precious ones in the school. There is not only sharing of space but also sharing of attention, food etc. One can’t escape the healthy sense of competition that prevails in schools. The writer calls it ‘healthy’, because these days there are no positions in the schools unlike the earlier times when we grew up with the ranking system. The student who was the last in the class was a subject of ridicule, pity and sympathy. The very intelligent had to work very hard to bag or retain the first position and the average student had to work hard not to be at the bottom of the ladder. The pressure then was tremendous. With the new grading system and the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) programme, studies in school have become easier and friendlier. The school has continued to play a very important role down the ages. It has always been an integral part of a child’s growing years and continues to be so. It is the school which has to balance every child’s needs by supervising, controlling and teaching. It is a very tough job as every school has its own ethos, ideology and beliefs. As parents, when we choose a school for our child, it is after a lot of deliberation within the family. Therefore, the family as a unit should be clear as to what aspirations it has from its children. The expectations of each family might be different. So, it becomes very important that the parents agree with the ideology of the school, where they admit their child. If they do not agree with the working of the school, then the school is not to be blamed. Instead of grumbling, we should try to be more contemplative while selecting the school, where we want our children to spend the next ten years of their life. These formative years are the most crucial in their lives. They are the foundation and if that happens to be weak, the structure would crumble in no time. The name of a school should not just be a criterion. Also, a school has to be different from home, otherwise we would not send our children to school. Discipline, empathy and duties are part of any school’s curriculum. The degree may differ but instilling these values is important. Parents should not complain if these are being taught to their children, for these are the values we cannot do without. There is no substitute for hard work. We need consistency, discipline and the ability to meet deadlines if we want to succeed in life. And these qualities are learned at the school, where we spend a major part of our lives. We have to start learning to trust our schools as our parents did, provided schools continue to be the temples of learning.
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Equip classroom for creativity LEARNING like other faculties is natural to a child. He acquires knowledge using his senses. While doing so, he takes the help of teachers and elders to understand the environment. The learner is expected to make use of the gained knowledge for the betterment of the present and the future. At present, most schools follow the British classroom system. This can also be called a blackboard system or demonstrative system that limits the scope of use of all human faculties to the maximum. In the demonstrative system, the teacher prepares the lesson from a book and explains to students in a classroom. In turn, the students memorise the lesson from notes, guides, books or tuitions and reproduce verbatim in the examination and move up in the classes. It is mostly rote work that is tertiary and does not make a person creative. Creativity is the most important part of education. In today’s ever-changing world, the new generation has to create and innovate to be abreast and ahead of others. The teacher can only do the demonstrative part. The rest has to be done by the student with his own senses under the mentorship of the teacher. The student must be able to perform by himself what he learns from books. However, good infrastructure is needed in the form of apparatus and gadgets. Here comes the role of the school and government. While the school must arrange resources to purchase the equipment, the latter needs to organise and promote educational research. Some schools do have some equipment, but it is hardly used. It is kept as a showpiece for inspections and demonstrations. Presently, 30 per cent of marks are reserved for practical purposes but that is generally doled to students as a parting gift. We normally talk high of the teachers of bygone days. They were probably good. Education in India was limited to the upper strata of population. The subjects taught were, by and large, need based for governing. Teachers were proficient in those subjects and students were not much in numbers. After Independence, the country needed scientists, engineers, doctors and technicians for development. Therefore, there was a spurt of schools, colleges and universities. There were few teachers who could handle science subjects. People who could not fit anywhere were fitted in schools. As a result, the quality of teaching took the beating. As science is a subject that is self-generating, the quality of its teaching has stagnated in spite of many experiments. Poor quality notwithstanding, millions of children attend schools today. The increased attendance in schools has brought about many problems. A huge demand against limited quality institutions has necessitated competition. Today entrepreneurs have opened teaching shops putting the poor to disadvantage and schools in disarray. It is high time the Ministry of Human Resource Development geared up its resources for educational research to design affordable practical apparatuses for science subjects. Educational industries must be encouraged to manufacture kits for schools and colleges. The educational industry has potential because all the developing and underdeveloped countries are facing a similar problem.
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Engineering institute puts warning notice on research papers CHENNAI: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) will put a warning notice on plagiarised papers in its digital library that will have long-term negative career impact, an official said. “IEEE organises a large number of conferences, where several papers are published and later added to our digital library. Earlier, when we received a plagiarism complaint, we used to remove that paper. But for the past one year, we have been putting a warning notice on the paper without removing them,” T.S. Rangarajan, chairman of IEEE’s Chennai Chapter, said at a conference on “Electronics, Communication and Advanced Network” held recently at Dhanalakshmi College of Engineering. He said 90 per cent of a research paper should be original and only 10 per cent can be the reference material. Rangarajan said the institute's move to put a warning note on the paper has a serious impact and acts as a deterrent for copycats. “To make engineers ready for jobs, standards and codes should be taught in colleges, so that companies need not spend time on training,” he said. — IANS Delhi school students discover asteroid New Delhi: A new asteroid has been discovered by two students from a Delhi school and the find has been confirmed by the international space community, an NGO for popularising space said last week.Shourya Chambial and Gaurav Pati from Amity International school in south Delhi's Pushp Vihar made the discovery as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign. “The discovery has been confirmed by the international scientific community and the asteroid has been provisionally named as 2013 LS28,” said Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) who organised the campaign with International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). “We are waiting for it to be placed in the world's official minor body catalogue maintained by International Astronomical Union (Paris),” it added. — IANS
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Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar UGC NET
ALL necessary arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC NET) for Junior Research Fellowship and Eligibility for Lectureship scheduled to be held on June 30. A total of 39 examination centres have been established in colleges and schools in Amritsar city. These include 12 centres on the university campus. According to Dr T.S. Banipal, co-ordinator, UGC NET, admit card/roll numbers, subject-wise centre statement and the list of discrepancies of the candidates appearing in the test have been uploaded on the university website www.gndu.ac.in. No admit card/roll number will be sent separately, he added. He advised the candidates to check discrepancies carefully and fulfil the necessary requirements up to June 26.
Sportspersons honoured
Guru Nanak Dev University honoured its campus sportspersons, who won positions in various international, national and All-India Inter-University sports competitions, at the Senate Hall of the university recently. Prof. P.K. Sehajpal, Dean, Students Welfare welcomed the chief guest and others. Professor Ajaib Singh Brar, Vice-Chancellor, presided over the function and honoured 24 sportspersons with blazers, tracksuits, university colour, certificates and cash. Professor P.K. Sehajpal, Dean, Students Welfare, welcomed the chief guest and others. Speaking on the occasion, Professor Brar said the university was committed to the overall development of students, and the university had already excelled in all spheres, including academics, culture and sports. He said sports incentives for the sportspersons had already been enhanced, along with other facilities. At present, the university has excellent sports infrastructure to meet international standards with upgraded sports stadium, including astroturf hockey stadium with a viewer gallery, cycling velodrome, multipurpose gymnasium, shooting range and swimming pool on its campus, he said.
Special chance
Keeping in view the future prospects of students, the university has decided to grant a special chance to those who could not clear their re-appear examination in under-graduate and post-graduate classes under the annual system till April 2013. These students can appeare in examination in September 2013 by paying a penalty fee of Rs 20,000 per paper, along with other fee. Dr. R.K. Mahajan, Professor In charge (Exams) said the students could contact the Examination Branch-1 of the university before July 12 for further information in this regard.
Summer school
A “Special Summer School” was organised at the Academic Staff College of the university recently. More than 36 participants from all over India participated in the course. Professor M.S. Hundal, Dean, Academic Affairs, who was the chief guest at the valedictory session, felicitated the participants at the successful completion of the course. He talked about the philosophy behind the introduction of such courses by the University Grants Commission. He said such courses provided a rare but ample opportunity to teachers to enhance their knowledge by interacting with various eminent resource persons from various disciplines. — Contributed by G.S. Paul
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