The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, November 30, 2002, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I L B A G

Contract jobs for colleges, varsity teachers

Apropos the editorial “Testing time for teachers” (Nov 12), the acceptance of the Ambani-Birla report by the UGC for contractual services of university and college teachers needs a critical review. The proposed action of the UGC will bring about further deterioration in the education system.

Contract appointments will discourage talent from entering this nobel profession. Managements will become all the more powerful and autocratic to breed sycophancy and nepotism.

At this moment, both the institutions and the teachers need an introspection. Some of the evils which have crept in the education system are:

1. Education has become more a business than dissemination of knowledge. Many of the private institutions are charging exorbitant fees just to expand the business. The state of laboratories and the standards of teaching are deteriorating day by day. The staff appointed on salaries less than those of clerks cannot be expected to perform their duties with dedication.

2. Institutions waste their resources and energies to please people in power. An institution may spend any amount to welcome a minister. Had this amount been invested in promoting the interests of the students, perhaps India would have ruled supreme in this arena.

3. Illegal private tuitions by many teachers have put the whole community in a dubious role. The students, for the fear of being victimised in examinations, have to follow the rat-race. Parents are equally responsible for making their children dumb driven.

4. Poor practical training is producing a battery of teachers who are deficient in knowledge. A few years hence we will have teachers with zero practical knowledge.

5. The celebrated Ph.D. degree is getting reduced to a bundle of typed pages. Despite being the producer of a maximum number of Ph.D.s, research in India has made no big impact in the world.

It is certain that the education sector needs an overhauling. However, contract services are no solution. Degeneracy paramounts in all fields. Will the government ever recommend contract services in the administration to throw out corruption and inculcate efficiency?

Prof A.K. THUKRAL, G.ND.University, Amritsar

Harmandar Sahib
Mr W.H. Mcleod has in his interview (Nov 26) said, the “Golden Temple” should be addressed as “Golden Gurdwara”. Both these names are given by foreigners, the first by the British rulers and the second one by a New Zealander. Its original name from the the times of the Gurus is “Harmandar” SGPC has also passed resolution to this effect. Sikh masses still address it has Harmandar or Darbar Sahib. He should stop spreading misinformation.
BALDEV SINGH, Amristar

Judicial delay

If it takes more than a year and a half for a court to decide and that too a special court (a special court naturally has a far less number of cases as compared to the district & sessions courts), whether a particular case being brought before it falls in its territorial jurisdiction or not, one should expect more than a decade and a half before the case is actually decided.

The particular case being of Mrs Bhattal, a former C.M. of Punjab, filed against her in the special court at Bathinda. It is not that there were no sittings of the court during this period. In fact, as reported in newspapers, applications, affidavits and counter-applications and affidavits were moved by the state government’s legal cell.

On the other hand, even in the case of a crime like a cold-blooded murder, a fatal accident, a daylight robbery, theft or rioting hardly does the gentle-policeman in charge of the police station allow the complainant to narrate the full story and is shown the exit door saying it does not fall in their jurisdiction.

RAKESH SINGLA, Patiala