Thursday, November 4, 2010

University with a vision

Is this the vision of our newly appointed vice-chancellor that a university is a place where teachers are engaged in forced-teaching under the threat of withholding their salary? Is this his prescription of achieving excellence in education that teachers must be penalised for not agreeing to sign a bond to relinquish their right of having a say in an academic matter that was hitherto decided by them? Did the Knowledge Commission want the teachers to stop thinking, shed any urge of having an opinion and avoid expressing their views on any academic matter? Does this country need mere teachers who help their students in scoring marks or somehow make them manage to pass out examinations? After all do we need plain tutors or we need inspiring educators. Would we like to produce thinking leaders or we require to create just copy-cats trying to earn bread and butter (also TVs, Cars and other assets)? Do we need nation builders or we just want self-servers. Should an institution be producing innovators or just course-content muggers? Does this nation require average humans with some skill sets or it requires visionaries?
Delhi University alumni have made their impression in all walks of life (i.e. film, theatre, music, art, politics, sports, thinker, writer, science, manufacturing, production and business) because it gave them the environment and opportunity to pursue their passions and also provided them the time to hold on to their interests along with their studies. Unless you acknowledge your strengths before identifying your weaknesses it is impossible to outline a roadmap for improvement.
Let us first ponder over to the question that do we need to have temples of learning or we just require money generating teaching institutions.
I have come to know that our vice chancellor is holding discussions with DUTA to find a way to come out of the impasse present in the university on the semester system. It is indeed encouraging, but unless priorities of our vice chancellor match with that of the teachers, it will be difficult for them to arrive on any agreement. For an a
greement will lead to improvement but a compromise will force the undesirable ruination of this premier University.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

very well written. keep it up.

Unknown said...

your write-up speaks of your creative and thought provoking approach to the issues concerning higher education in genera land Delhi university in specific.

Unknown said...

I feel that there is no way we can get rid of the semester now.We can only get a compromise by getting it postponed to the next academic session.
The discussion with the new VC is only on how to implement the semester system successfully with the agreement of the teachers. The desirability & feasibility of the semester system is something which VC doesn't seem to discuss now...

Naveen Gaur said...

I completely agree to your sentiments.

It's a irony that the people who are taking these decisions too came from our own system. Why is it so that the people who have been our colleagues for years the moment they get something starts behaving differently. I also think that it's a time for serious introspection that have we been able to impart the students a culture where they questions everything ??

In academics also the the teachers are becoming more of yes mans and hence every time a syllabus is revised it further promotes another disaster. Look at what happened with the revision of B.Sc. Physical Sc., Life Sc., Math (H) etc.

We have to get involved, we have to protest.

I disagree with "madhur" that there is no way we can get rid of semester. After a long long time we could see teachers revolting against University, the evidence is the huge presence in march to MHRD.
DUTA has got huge mandate and it would be difficult for the leadership to go back from the resolutions they have passed in their GBMs. The only silver lining I could see is that at least new VC had a discussion with DUTA leadership. At least the channels that were completely closed during Pental's regime have opened.

The question is not whether it's semester or annual the question is have be deliberated on it sufficiently before using students as experimental labs !!

Dr. Rakesh Kumar Pandey said...

From: Naveen Jain
Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: University with a vision
To: rakesh pandey



Brilliant efforts on the part of Dr Rakesh.

We teachers are I think will agree 100% with this piece of your thought, but what about our policy makers as there is huge gap between their saying and doing.

Corruption is on the rise and there is no provision in the education system to prepare citizens with high moral values in this country along with the capability to earn bread and butter for him and his family with respect.

Otherwise we all would have to be ready to face this epidemic of corruption and its consequences in all our daily life in near future.

Warm Regards and Happy Diwali


N K Jain

Z H College

Sumitra MohantyChakrabarti said...

You said it!

Try to send this to leading newspapers.