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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Deans ask for change One college changing lives in 200 villages
Campus Note
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In defence of Abhimanyu
The class XII student today is like Abhimanyu, for whom society and the state have created a Chakravyuha of certain death. This time of the year, newspapers are full of stories of students who fail in various examinations and decide to kill themselves—a measure of how tough it must be for students to handle the stress to which their parents contribute significantly. The entrance tests create a hierarchy of ranks. You must not only do well, but also wish others ill. Parents teach their children to be secretive, selfish and manipulative. The attributes that get you marks in examinations prevent you from rising in career, which requires the capacity to relate to others and to be able to work in a team. Parents have this notion that performance in examinations is directly proportional to the hours that you put in. When students working 16-18 hours a day fail to do well, their parents say: “You must not have been studying hard enough.” Everyone cannot do equally well in tests. If they did, the rules of the game would be changed, as the purpose of a test is to create a vertical ranking. The system, which so heartlessly drives young men and women to suicide, is itself faulty. Routinely there are instances of questions getting leaked, copying in the examination hall, grave errors in the question-paper, clash of dates, sudden cancellation or when the tests are deferred. Children of the rich, who fail to get into a good college in India, enter a middle or low-rung college in the USA and do extremely well not only through the college, but also in the later life. This is because elsewhere, the education system is largely enhancing and capacity building, while our system is rejectionist. We have such a large number of students that we do not know what do with them. At every stage, therefore, we create obstacles so that more and more of them fall by the wayside till we are left with a manageable handful. While we have large-scale unemployment even among the educated youth, sectors like IT and pharmaceutical cry for trained personnel. We talk of human resource development, but are reluctant to leave evaluation to a human agency because of the risks of subjectivity and influence. The examination system has warped the education system. Over the past four decades, the content in education has steadily gone down. First the laboratory training, practical tests and oral examinations were abandoned and now even grounding in concepts has been neglected. The whole arrangement of twelve years of schooling with an elaborate examination system has become worthless before a two-hour yes/no type of test, where a mental blackout for thirty seconds can irreversibly change the course of a youngsters life. As the stakes are high, parents are ready to spend lakhs of rupees to see that their wards should qualify. Students who get into professional colleges via the cheating route do not stick out. There is not much difference in the calibre of students who make it and those who do not. The system has its compulsions. State and Central boards have differing standards. State boards, generally, give more marks than the CBSE or the ICSE. If regular school education and board examinations are given suitable weightage, a way has to found to bridge the instruction gap among various boards. If objective-type entrance test has become an integral part of screening, why should it remain outside the formal education system? Surely, preparation for CET can be a part of the school system. Since private coaching centres are a major player in the leaking game, students’ dependence on these should decrease. If these centres pay a suitable service tax, state education can be easily funded. The plus-two system needs to be extended to become plus three or at least plus two-and-a-half. Let’s not cram the board examinations with the various entrance tests. Students can first get the results of the board examinations, and if their performance is above a threshold, they can then write the CET. There may be other worthier solutions, but the system should be changed for the better.
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Deans ask for change TO inculcate need-based changes in the syllabus of B.Sc Horticulture and Forestry, the Fourth Dean’s Committee has made significant recommendations in the prevailing course curriculum. The syllabus, which was out of sync with the present times, would be re-devised, keeping in view the employment scene in the public and private sectors. New courses like entrepreneurship development, agri-business management, export-quality standards, disaster management, climate change and organic cultivation would be introduced in these two streams. A crucial recommendation to establish a centre for distance education by each university was also made. Each college would organise at least two need-based certificate courses in a year on any subject to train the unemployed youth for self-employment. The national-level Deans Committee meeting held at Dr Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry recently gave recommendations for various farm universities across the nation. According to Dr S. L. Mehta, chairman of the committee and Vice-Chancellor of Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, the graduates would be taught the usual courses during three years and one year would be for experimental learning for all students. Four areas have been identified for experimental learning in horticulture: protected cultivation of high value crops, nursery production and management, post-harvest technology and value addition and floriculture and landscape gardening. In forestry, the three areas that have been identified include production and marketing of medicinal plants and natural resource management. Students should get need-based training in the industrial units and the rural areas for practical knowledge. To bring in flexibility and reduce the burden on students, it has been recommended that they should be asked of choose any the two courses of their interest out of the eight courses. A specialisation in two courses would be required. Rs 1 crore would be set aside as an additional grant for each college from the Indian Council for Agriculture Research. This fund would be used for organising that one-year practical training. Besides Internet connectivity and modernisation of libraries, classrooms and laboratories, the committee has recommended that all members of the faculty should acquire knowledge of computers. Additional grant has been sought from the ICAR and ICFRE to upgrade the infrastructure. Rs 2 to Rs 2.5 lakh would be set aside for inviting guest lecturers. The Indian Council for Forestry Research and Education, Dehra Dun, should give colleges of forestry liberal support for infrastructure development. This would further train forestry graduates and strengthen linkages with the state forest departments. Emerging areas like food processing and value addition would be given special attention. Dr Jagmohan Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Dr Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, observed that the recommendations of this committee would help develop the requisite manpower to suit the needs of the industry. This would generate employment and strengthen the economy. Thirty Deans and Directors of various farm universities across the country attended the meeting.
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One college changing lives in 200 villages Mukandpur, though a tiny town in the heart of the Dhakki area in the district of Nawanshahr, it can boast of a prestigious institution for higher education. There are a number of degree colleges in rural areas these days, but it’s still rare to find an institution like Amardeep Singh Shergill Memorial College, Mukandpur, established 12 years ago in the memory of a young and brilliant student of the London School of Economics. The parents, relatives and friends of Amardeep Singh Shergill raised a temple of learning to commemorate his memory. The soul of Amardeep has become instrumental in brightening the light of knowledge to many “Deeps” in the rural area around his ancestral village. The management, working under the leadership of renowned Agro-Economist Dr S. S.
Johl, has been striving hard to make it a college with a difference in the true spirit of the phrase. The management and overseas committee have been doing a yeoman’s service in providing the college with infrastructure facilities on a par with the international standards, enabling the rural youth to face the challenges of the present era of globalisation. The institution promotes higher education in nearly 200 villages in the vicinity. It is proving to be a boon for women’s education in this area where parents would not dare to send their daughters to cities for higher education. These days, one can find young women in the feeder area with degrees like M.Sc (IT), M.Com, M.Sc and MA. Besides, there is a galaxy of engineers, IT professionals, college and school lecturers, charted accountants and other professionals in alumni associations. Dozens of students have joined overseas universities. Many old students are self-employed. Roshan Prince, winner of “Awaz Punjab Di” contest conducted by the channel MH-1, is a product of this college. The college has also introduced a postgraduate course in vocal music, BCA, PG diploma in financial services and PG diploma in dress designing this year, according to Dr Atamjit Singh, Principal. The class infrastructure, with matching talent and hard work, has been shaping the destiny of the rural youth by equipping them with education. The aim of college is to provide the rural youth with value-based and job-oriented education and training. Besides offering various graduate and postgraduate courses, the college, with a view to catering to the special needs of the rural youth, has also introduced a number of vocational courses like automobile maintenance, dairy farming, childcare, data care management etc. within the arts stream.
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Campus Note Guru Nanak Dev University has asked the NRI candidates to procure one more prospectus to apply afresh for admission to various courses. This has spread resentment among the candidates. Earlier the candidates had to apply for the NRI seats by writing in the form that came with the general prospectus and this year, too, the NRI candidates had followed the same procedure before the entrance test. Now, they are unable to understand why they should fill another form and buy another prospectus. When contacted, Dr S. P. Singh, Vice-Chancellor, said that the university faced assessment problem, so a separate form was needed to distinguish between the NRI candidates and the rest. He said that the new prospectus was just as expensive as the general catalog that costs Rs 350. However, it means the NRI candidates will now have to pay twice for the same thing for this
session. —Contributed by Neeraj Bagga
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