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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Allow
everyone to have a voice Campus
Notes
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Allow everyone to have a voice A fresh, re-invigorated and democratic examination of the education system is urgently required if we are to evolve as a vigorous civil society backed by the ever-growing number of Gramcian “organic intellectuals” who are always identified with the marginalised or the oppressed and work on the behalf of social and political causes. The individual cannot possible be sacrificed in favour of the state and its hegemony. We all know that learning is a socially constructed activity, determined by historical factors which are interwoven by hegemonic discourses through social practices, institutional norms and rules used by the dominant social forces. Educational activism has to respond to this hegemonizing tendency of established structures of disciplines, moving into a new era of post-disciplinarity where research becomes a collective and comparative enterprise, and debates occur within the context of politics and cultural globalism with a full understanding of the culturally produced social relations. And in this context, the individual’s capacity for action in the face of adversial forces remains paramount. Disciplines are born and die; the ongoing processes of innovation tend to bring about a fusion of sociology, history, literature and politics, a looseness which gives an inherent impetus towards wider horizons missing in the narrow and specialised area studies. This is what, I may call, the final coalescing of radical politics and intellectual fields at a time when the old retrogressive school of academics suspicious of going beyond the narrow territorial claims of their discipline still asserts itself. Nowhere is this so visible as in the strict compartmantalism that blemishes disciplines in the university. Academics within a discipline speak from the site of their location and often impose their findings and views on generations of scholars who follow them blindly. Perspectives thus gain a universal quality, and are, therefore, either borrowed or overwhelm generations after generations. Institutional structures always help to establish disciplines that chauvinistically claim their boundaries. What is overlooked is the idea that knowledge is always promoted through interaction and through the relative location of our world-view. It is for this reason that crossing borders becomes the hallmark of any far-reaching view of education. The daily prospect of rubbing shoulders with active research scholars from other disciplines always stimulates learning and lends amazing value to the life in the university. I have always felt that there is a need to have an academic culture in which we could have wide-ranging experience that would lead to the overall development of research and teaching, enabling us to understand social structures which facilitate the maintenance of political and academic authority. The question that needs to be focused on is the relevance of culture, politics and history to social behaviour and society’s attitudes towards knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law and customs. Such diverse intellectual activities address several questions pertaining to varied theoretical and political positions. Interdisciplinary approach of this nature, therefore, is committed to social reconstruction by a critical political involvement. Principles of academic freedom and the opening up new courses or options so as to build connections between the university and the larger community are a must. Alternative programmes of study and action, of teaching and research are certainly very compelling on intellectual and moral grounds, and will have a great impact on the intellectual ambience of the university. This implies that academics have to learn to live within contingency, uncertainty and skepticism, always ready to question corporate thinking and its neo-liberal underpinnings. We cannot be passive recipients of knowledge without having an autonomous and an independent identity. The arrogance and narrow perspectives of guardians of watertight disciplines and their foolhardy self-assurance in thinking they have the answers to problems of social justice makes cross-border dialogue impossible. For instance, collecting simple data departments engaged in population studies is hardly scholarly unless it leads to far-reaching recommendations for social change and social renovation. Dominant groups of power, of petty professional rivalry or short-term gains have to be countered through a Left-oriented culturalist theory that challenges the conservative temperaments of the old school. Domination through consensual social practices reproduced in social spaces is destructively hegemonic. Operating through given symbols and a structured body of knowledge and social practices perpetuate more convenient, though moribund, systems. Within departments, it is often seen that one group falls back on another for its support so as to silence any opposition. Skepticism towards or rejection of received assumptions helps to break the fossilised notions of knowledge enhancement. Maybe we academics make the mistake of trying to achieve a timeless perspective on a well-defined patch of reality, whereas true intellectuals are prompted by current events to develop a distinctive point of view on all reality, which they repeatedly revisit and revise as times change. They realise that their conscience is the most reliable instrument of inquiry at their disposal. We remember them more for the attitude they bring to what they write or say. They do not disappear into the subject they write on; they are provoked by feelings of ambivalence, antagonism and even contempt. And more often than not, our own assumptions need to be debated and challenged which is only possible if academics are open-minded and morally committed in their engagement with socially and culturally significant issues in a constant process of self-criticism. Only then can intellectual and theoretical movements thrive. We need to be always poised at the threshold of admitting that we might be wrong and through the revision of our views we might enable ourselves to move ahead and learn something new. A reflexive process along with a search for alternatives needs to underpin our revolutionary pedagogical programmes, which, according to the North American scholar, pedagogue and activist, Peter McLaren, “constitutes a dialectical and dialogical process that instantiates a reciprocal exchange between teachers and students, an exchange that engages in the task of reframing, refunctioning, and reposing the question of understanding itself, bringing into dialectical relief the structural and relational dimensions of knowledge and its hydra-headed power/knowledge dimensions. Revolutionary pedagogy goes further still. It puts power/knowledge relations on a collision course with their own internal contradictions; such a powerful and often unbearable collision gives birth not to an epistemological resolution at a higher level but rather to a provisional glimpse of a new society freed from the bondage of the past.” Finally, it could be argued that the creation of a dependable free and participatory socialist movement is one of the aims of radical pedagogy. Education is one field that can help in creating conditions fertile enough to end inequality and usher a new age of human development. And this will not take place until we as a civil society do not learn to interrogate ourselves and our positions. Blaming others or being cynical is all too convenient a way of shirking responsibility. The air of hypocrisy and opportunism in the academy perpetuated by those who pretend to be revolutionary supporters of the cause of justice can be cleaned only when we begin to question our own values and beliefs and move towards a more egalitarian movement that allows a voice to all. Teaching practices based on such a philosophy will usher a new era of social and gender equality, especially when we step beyond our narrow fiefdoms and reexamines issues in the light of broader perspectives gained through interaction with our fellow colleagues from other disciplines. I only propose the value of humanities to social sciences, of cultural studies to ethnic and gender issues often overlooked by narrow research that smacks of the “frog in the well” syndrome. Surely, we academics need to restate our position and adopt a more critical and a militant methodology that will go a long way in rearranging the world of higher education. In this lies not only the addition of possibilities but also the reexamination of the object of our investigation from various comparative perspectives which Bourdieu calls “ the intellectual field” or Fritz Ringer defines as “a network of relationships”. This approach is central to not only cultural studies but to the whole issue of redefining disciplines and their boundaries.
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Campus Notes A two-day meeting to review research work done in the areas of dry land farming, agro-meteorology and climate change under the All-India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) was held at Haryana Agricultural University recently. Scientists working at Hisar, Karnal, Agra, Jammu & Kashmir, Ludhiana, Palampur, Shimla, Dehradun, New Delhi and Kanpur centres of the AICRP attended the meeting. Inaugurating the meeting, the Director of Research, Dr R. P. Narwal, emphasised the need for concerted efforts to enhance agriculture production in rainfed areas. He said the production of crops in irrigated areas had already peaked and there was little or no scope to increase agriculture production further in these areas. He said of the 143 million hectares of total cultivated land in the country, there were 101 million hectares which were rainfed and contributed about 42 per cent of the total food production. He said in this scenario it was not possible to usher in the second green revolution without enhancing productivity of dryland areas. Narwal said the scientists should encourage micro-irrigation techniques, horticulture and forestry as well in these areas. This, he said, would help farmers improve their socio-economic status. SMS helpline popular
The mobile SMS helpline service on weather forecast launched by Haryana Agricultural University has become popular with farmers as in a short span of just six months, nearly 7,000 of farmers have used the service. According to official sources, this free service first provided by any farm varsity in the country, was launched in March this year under the 'ATMA' scheme of the Agriculture Department of the Haryana government. As weather played an important role in crop production, information regarding expected weather conditions if available to farmers in time helps them to complete farm operations accordingly and save crops from losses due to abrupt changes in weather. The sources said that SMSes on weather forecast along with expert advice were being sent regularly in Hindi to the farmers. He said facility of voice SMS to the illiterate farmers was also provided. Student bags scholarship
Gunjan, an M.Sc student of Haryana Agricultural University, has bagged a merit scholarship offered by the Haryana State Council for Science and Technology. Under this scholarship scheme, she will receive a monthly amount of Rs 6,000 as scholarship and a contingency stipend of Rs 5,000 once in a year. She is doing research on the chemical composition and antioxidant activity of amla and jamun. Mountaineers’ feat
A contingent of 23 mountaineers of Haryana Agricultural University has successfully completed high altitude trekking mission to Mount Jagatsukh (5303m) in the Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh. On arrival at the campus, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr K. S. Khokhar, and the Director Students' Welfare, Dr Ram Kumar Yadav, greeted the contingent and congratulated its members on this success. Dr Mukesh Saini, President, HAU Mountaineering Club, who led the contingent said during the 10-day expedition, the group, which included Arun Janu, Manoj, Neha Mittal, Pradeep, Manish, Praveen, Ashutosh, Vikram, Kirtipal, Yashdev, Swati, Jyoti, Narender, Ashok, Hiralal, Shashikant, Vipesh, Prabhat, Navish, Manoj, Gurmesh, Padam and Anil, also trekked to Chandratal Lake (4270m) near Mount Deo Tibba (6001m). Guru Jambheshwar University of
Science & Technology, Hisar An induction programme was organised in the Boys Hostel No. 2 for the freshers. The main objective of the programme was to familiarise the new students with the norms and procedures of the hostel, to make them aware of the positive activities of the hostel residents and to create congenial atmosphere among students to avoid ragging. Chief Warden S. C. Kundu highlighted the relevance of discipline and career consciousness in student life. Dr Sandeep Rana, Warden, Boys Hostel No. 2, emphasised the need for participation, sharing, commitment and community feeling in the management of hostels. — Contributed by Raman Mohan |
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A
fresh, re-invigorated and democratic examination of the education
system is urgently required if we are to evolve as a vigorous civil
society backed by the ever-growing number of Gramcian “organic
intellectuals” who are always identified with the marginalised or
the oppressed and work on the behalf of social and political causes.
The individual cannot possible be sacrificed in favour of the state
and its hegemony.