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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Better to ban history
than teach supremacy
Crisis of idealism in teaching
No attack on varsity autonomy, says Governor |
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Better to ban history than teach supremacy Teaching of history has always been subjective in all cultures. For radicals, “shared heritage” would always mean reassuring collective amnesia. Their partial beliefs, worse than no education at all, are influencing all countries, not just India, with Britain facing their latest onslaught, as
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown takes a look. "There were Africans in Britain
before the English came here," is the very first sentence in the
seminal history book, Staying Power: The History of Black People in
Britain, by the white Yorkshireman, Peter Fryer, who first became
interested in the subject when he went as a reporter to cover the
arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in 1948. Fryer is talking
about the soldiers in the Roman imperial army who occupied parts of
this island for more than 300 years. A division of Moors guarded
Hadrian’s Wall and for the next 500 years, Africans were found in
royal palaces and across the country. Have the Tories read Fryer’s
tome? Or The Chinese Opium Wars, an old but essential book by
Jack Beeching, the Thirties poet from Sussex who described how the
British, through guile, bribery and violence, implanted opium in China
causing widespread addiction, and grotesque profiteering? Do they know
and acknowledge these facts? And if not, is that because they never
learnt history as a child or because they went to a school where
pupils were taught a distorted history bloated with patriotic
propaganda? Some of the most learned and powerful are busily reviving
reactionary narratives. Such partial knowledge is worse than no
education at all. Better to ban history than create yet another
generation who want to believe they are born to rule. In 1992,
Margaret Thatcher said in Bruges that Europe should be proud it
conquered and civilised the rest of the world. In 1996, Tony Blair,
said: "Consider British history and what it tells us ... an
empire, the largest empire the world has ever seen". Power does
corrupt, the truth most of all. There is no country on earth that can
or should make such claims. Most don’t. The festival of exaltation
of Winston Churchill is upon us and again. Our citizens should mark
the greatness of this leader who led the nation to victory over the
Nazis but they should also be made to recall his racist belief that
people of colour, Africans especially, were inferior humans in need of
control and enlightenment. The right-wing historians believe these to
be hugely admirable qualities. Of course excellent, progressive
developments happened during the long years of colonialism and
imperialism, but those projects were built on supremacist beliefs, on
greed and racial hubris, which is why real democracy was never on the
agenda. There was a time when radical indigenous Britons understood
the damage that was done to both sides by the Empire. I think of all
those British and American supporters of Gandhi, of the Labour MP
Fenner Brockway, the Theosophists; Kingsley Martin editor of the New
Statesman in the Thirties. Not any more. It has become offensive
to remind people of the atrocities and inequalities of the British
Empire. Undivided India had a flourishing cotton industry destroyed
by the British. During the Raj, millions died in famines in India or
were driven out, my ancestors included. After independence and the
establishment of democracy, as Amartya Sen points out, such massive
famines have never recurred. Then there is the damage done to the will
and self-esteem of a nation, even one as indomitable as India. It is
only now, after more than half a century, that there is a generation
of Indians and Pakistanis who can define themselves and their destiny
beyond the wretched Raj. The good news here is that millions of us
new Britons will not surrender to this invented history, this travesty
even if the state demands it of us in exchange for citizenship
entitlements. If this is what the Tories and Labour mean by
integration they can stuff it. True, the Empire brought us together,
but it was for better and worse. (By arrangement with The
Independent)
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Crisis of idealism in teaching A poor teacher tells, This is how a scholar tried to differentiate among great, good, average and poor teacher. Even
our scholarly President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, calls teachers the "best minds of the nation". The question is, are teachers performing honestly their task in India, seen as an emerging knowledge industry by the West. Of late, the image of teachers has been dented. One comes across reports almost daily with regard to the intolerant behaviour of teachers. Corporal punishment (banned since 1998) is still given to students, even as indiscipline has only been growing. However, still there are teachers who are respected. These teachers have religiously stuck to the healthy value system and have never compromised on self-discipline and duty consciousness. Obviously, hard work put up by them in classes has been primarily responsible for these dividends that are being paid to them as respect from those they have taught. The number of idealist teachers, who could be role models in this fast changing education scene, is dwindling because educator today has failed to realize this absence of trust and respect in teacher-taught relationship. Respect had been a hallmark of such relationship when our elders were in school. Most of the educational institutions today have become dens of drug abuse and child abuse; unsavory conduct is fast replacing decency in education and educators. The mushrooming tuition networks have brought professional ethics into question and have cast a shadow on a wide section of teachers. Missionary zeal is lost and materialism is holding sway. We have all heard of teachers who mark their presence in attendance registers just to collect their pay cheques and enforce discipline in classrooms by following the policy of "spare the rod and spoil the child". One would assume education to have come of age, with role models that follow the paths of self-discipline and sacrifice. We, the teachers, often forget the elementary lessons that we teach: that school is a garden and a student is a tender plant, where a teacher is supposed to be a caring gardener. The good teacher is the one who fully understands his or her pupil's capabilities and provides him or her with the right environment to make full use of these talents to shine later in life. The educator, who himself is not an awakened soul, cannot make his students' souls come alive. A teacher who has no quest to update his or her knowledge is unable to light another lamp because his own flame does not have much light. Time has come for educators to self-introspect and judge if we are indeed keeping a balance between D's (duty, dedication, determination) and M's (money, materialism, merry-making). |
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No attack on varsity autonomy, says Governor Apropos
of the article, "Chancellor's advice versus university autonomy", published in Education Tribune on January 25, Mr D. S. Kalha, Principal Secretary to the Governor, Punjab, in a clarification issued here, says that an advisory issued by the Chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University, to the Vice-Chancellor of the university in the matter of appointment of Head of the Department of Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy has raised vital questions. These include whether the university was created to nurture and build career prospects of its students or whether the career advancement of a member of the faculty has precedence and whether "autonomy" means autonomy in the pursuit of excellence in academic affairs or does it permit compromise with academic interests. The letter says that there can be no doubt that the universities are established and exist for students and that autonomy mandates a single-minded devotion and pursuit of academic excellence without any interference, be it the government or any other pressure group. If that were so, would an advice issued by the Chancellor in a matter concerning pursuit of academic excellence and the future of students tantamount to interference? Would the Chancellor not be failing in his duty if he did not advise the university authorities to have the matter considered in the Syndicate? This is the core issue and the debate should not be reduced to promotion of individual interests. On facts as well, it is perhaps, not in the public knowledge that the Chancellor has asked the Vice-Chancellor to offer his comments on the following: 1. The promotion of Dr Kang as Reader in the Department was recommended in a personal scale by the Selection Committee in its meeting held on 3/12/03 and subject to the condition that "under no circumstance and/or at any later stage, he can be considered for headship of the Department of Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy, being a non-medical graduate. He shall also not be considered, at any stage, for any assignment of even officiating as head of the department or even on rotational basis, he shall not be considered". Under what circumstances, therefore, is the appointment being considered at this stage? 2. The HOD in a letter addressed to Dr Kang (February 5, 2003) had accused Dr Kang of "willfully presenting himself as a psychologist without possessing a requisite degree in the relevant subject" and has held him ineligible to teach the subject of psychology. What action did the university take in this matter? 3. The person concerned, Dr Kang, has himself in a letter dated 13.12.04, addressed to the VC, stated that he does not belong to the medical or physiotherapy stream and it would not be proper for him to claim headship of the department. He had requested to be shifted to the Department of Physical Education. Has this request been considered? The letter from the office of the Governor further says that the appointment of Dr Kang as HOD would result in de-recognition of the course by the Indian Physiotherapist Association and thereby jeopardise the future of the students. It is the desire of the Chancellor that the academic interest of the students is kept paramount and not compromised under any circumstance. The VC has, therefore, been advised to initiate suitable amendments in the University Calendar regarding appointments of HODs, Dean of Faculties and Dean of Academic Affairs, keeping in view specialised/professional nature of courses. |
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by the Chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University, to the Vice-Chancellor of the university in
the matter of appointment of Head of the Department of Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy has raised vital questions.
The