Instead of looking back can we move ahead?

Just as, a mindless step taken without proper thinking and discussion is a wrong move, ‘rollback’ can never be accepted as a progressive move either. And a rollback to what? Do we mean a rollback to the Semester System? We must not forget that though DUTA could never come out with any unanimous opinion about FYUP, it is on record to have opposed to the Semester System. Are we just choosing the lesser evil or we want to match with the ego of our University Authorities? As expected and as warned by us the examination system could not look for cover when it attempted to organize the very first Semester Examinations. The examination system that had nearly collapsed initially with the introduction of the Semester system is now showing a slow but sure improvement year by year and semester by semester. What would have been appreciated by all was if the examination process was computerized first and we were made comfortable with the new system before adopting the Semester System. One of the major apprehensions would have had been taken care of if we would have been shown first that it is possible to publish an error-free result within a month of the completion of examinations before thinking of moving towards Semesterisation.

As only we face the students directly, teachers concern have always remained about the standards that we are supposed to deliver to the students. A compromise in this puts us off. With the introduction of FYUP we feel that we have been forced to compromise further on the quality of product that we are expected to meet. This time, and unlike Semesterisation when we were only expected to adopt a bi-annual examination system, FYUP dares to change the way we look at the education in India. This change that required a change in attitude and purpose of teaching should have not been done in hurried manner. The more time that we would have given for its preparation the better we could have been placed right now. Forget about convincing the teachers as to what is the correct approach towards education, teachers are still looking for reasons to teach students in a manner that is required in FYUP. Why on earth we need to teach ‘mathematical ability’ to the students of B.Sc.(H)Maths ---- or why do we need to teach basic history to the students of B.A.(H) History ---- teachers do not have any clue. Teachers are only searching for the missing UK connection in the FC papers. I must admit that while teaching a few of the FC papers I personally do see some positives in interacting with students of varied background but I am still learning to utilize this opportunity for mutual benefit in the absence of any pre-identified purpose behind this adopted methodology.

However is there a way ahead or only another fall behind? Disasters can never be rolled back. It will leave scars on the students' future who were subjected to study FYUP. Let us not make another mistake of doing something without analyzing the present situation. Can we think of listing the deficiencies that exist in the current FYUP structure and syllabi? Let us first allow the list to be as exhaustive as possible? If the list does not have infinite items then can we try identifying some of them as major drawbacks? To list a few of these as examples I place the following points.

•            No value addition despite consumption of an additional year.
• ·         Undue and unjustified importance attributed to the Foundation Courses.
• ·         Less attention given to the respective discipline papers.

Can't we think of suggesting a prescription to the University that would effectively address these alongwith other major problems that would eventually provide an immediate and much needed respite to the teachers and students or we would just like to insist only on a ‘rollback’?

Four –Year Disaster Management Programme

     And I wished that the four-Year Programme will not be implemented! But I had no basis for such an expectation. Mr. Arun Jaitley had expressed his fear in the speech that he delivered in the NDTF organized seminar on the Education Policy last year where he asked us to be alert as the fresh attempts of the present government at opening up FDIs in the consumer market segment was definitely going to be the last nail in the coffin for the Indian manufacturing and other such indigenous technologically high-end sectors. He had concluded that there was every possibility of India getting converting into a 'country of salespersons'. A country of salespersons meaning thereby that this country will become a place where you would no longer require persons with great technical skills and instead you would require persons with a reasonable level of communication and presentation skills, having some mathematical ability, who have working knowledge Indian history and Geography, a little exposure to science, technical gadgets and philosophy and have an ability to keep peace with their mind, body and heart so that they can feel satisfied even if they are unreasonably asked to show performance disregarding the amount of effort they put to achieve a target. A place where the manufacturing units are facing closure and only real estate and Mall-culture is kicking up its business, why the hell one would need accomplished persons with great thinking ability, deep understanding of issues and/or sound technical skills? These kinds of persons are required only in developed countries.

       In view of the above requirement, this country needed an educational policy that on one hand would encourage good students to go to a developed country (read US) and on the other hand to encourage others to develop the above-mentioned soft-skills and become drop outs as they would be required in our country to fill the appetite of our service sectors that is bound to see an explosion. Delhi University came ahead with a structure that fits exactly into this requirement. The structure indeed will slowly but surely discourage serious students from choosing Delhi University as the new structure will not offer what they would be looking for. These students will be disappointed to see that their favorite discipline is going to occupy them only for one-third of their class-time. Realizing their mistake they would start looking for other private institutions where they are not likely to waste studying for so many disorientation-generating Foundation Courses. On the other hand, those who would enjoy studying Foundation Courses will develop fear for the last two years of discipline-oriented courses and will eventually exit the course to fall for lower-level job openings where they would realize their mistake of leaving their studies only after a decade but that too only if they were not good at grasping the lessons taught during the course named as “Integrating Mind, Body and Heart”. Only those who have nothing else to do would opt for continuing their studies. It is exactly the same overwhelming set of students that take admissions in the government schools. This prescription is perfect for converting our University with some excellence into the Government school culture where teachers are kept busy with election-duties, census-works, mid-day meal arrangements and organizing functions for felicitating local/non-local political leaders. Students who are serious have no options but to go for private institutions. I just wish that this effort of Delhi University in developing a course especially for drop-outs is successful in reversing the existing trend of students opting for the Delhi University courses over many better degrees offered by private institutes running B.Tech./B.E./M.B.A./B.B.A/M.C.A./B.C.A. and other such higher-level job-oriented courses otherwise the University will be forced to take further such regressive steps! With requirements stated as above our education system that otherwise and urgently needed a change for better could not attempt at improving the quality of education to the set of students that choose to study in Delhi University.

        The effect of the steps taken by Delhi University is that the University is already moved into a disaster-management mode. After witnessing the non-responsive character of the University during the anti-semester struggle, the moment our present Vice-Chancellor revealed his intention of implementing a Four-Year-Programme, the University moved into this phase. The ‘task force’ got engaged in an exercise to minimize the after-effects of this time-bound (non-avertable) disaster. Originally, the proposal was to have one year of discipline-free course-structure but it was probably dropped only when the members of the ‘task force’ threw their towel down to make their point. The ‘task force’ was left essentially to suggest ways to control the damage as they had no authority to question the structure as they say - that the structure was an outcome of a three-day seminar wherein there exists no record of any discussion on the proposed structure in any of its sessions.

         We know that the teachers can only be asked to prepare for the eighteen-odd lectures that they are supposed to deliver in a week, but they raise doubts only when they see a danger of delivering lectures to a non-receptive bunch of students or they fear to witness a nightmare of facing dissatisfied lot students who are otherwise interested in studies.

      I am now preparing myself for facing the disaster as the University also has started enforcing frequent last-minute fine-tuning into the structures and their assessment on the infrastructure requirements that often exhibits their ever-growing panic level. However, despite the unexpected show of interest by the government, I am sure that we are not likely to get any respite as they are now in a win-win situation wherein for the first time they would not be blamed for the disaster. They are in such an enviable position that they are able to take an unprecedented stand of not resorting to interfere into the University’s autonomy (as if they have never interfered!). The Government is preferring to ‘enjoy’ through its ‘Dhritarashtra eye’ that has no fear of witnessing the arrival of a ‘Krishna’ this time as the University is continuously engaged in trying to pull off the sari of our Education system.

A sure-shot recipe for disaster

( also published at http://www.governancenow.com/news/public-reporter/du-s-4-yr-undergrad-programme-recipe-disaster )

The semesterisation could not achieve what was claimed by its implementer. The earlier vice-chancellor compromised all the features (like interdisciplinary approach, lesser burdening of students and allowing in-depth understanding of subjects etc.) in order to achieve semesterisation. As warned, the examination structure almost collapsed initially and that resulted in unreasonable distribution of marks. This invited students’ plea for transparency and reevaluation that was further crushed with a hike in reevaluation fees and implementation of another flawed approach of getting three examiners to check a single paper. And now we all know that after being unable to tackle the pressure of bi-annual semester system, the university examination wing is compelled to pass this unmanageable burden on to the college administration. The University authorities now seem to have admitted their failure in achieving the aims of semesterisation but only in misusing this to justify the timing for ‘their’ another proposal of Four-Year-Undergraduate-Program when the first batch of semester-graduates is yet to exit the colleges.

Unfortunately the only lesson that the University seems to have learnt from its recent experiment with students’ future is that they now know that the administration can implement their ideas ignoring all reasoned oppositions. The failure of teachers’ movement in opposing the semesterisation process has created two-fold problems. One, that teachers are now apprehensive in taking another such reasoned stand that led to a system that is completely non-responsive and secondly the University authorities have got unreasonably emboldened. Now there is no one who bothers to answer you and that has led to a situation where nobody is willing to ask ‘unnoticed’ questions.

Whereas the semesterisation was a bundle of mere cosmetic changes that boiled down to accepting a bi-annual examination program, this time the proposed structure is set to remodel our vision and understanding on the aims and objectives of our education system. It seems to have set to produce a generation of unskilled youth-power only fit to become salesperson and ready to get exploited in the new consumerism world. Only with this vision one can approve dilution of disciplinary subjects, wastage of one year without any value addition, disorienting a student that was oriented towards a particular discipline of choice during their school studies and introduction of eleven pre-elementary level ‘non-focused’ foundation courses. And all these are being made to swallow by a system whose infrastructure is yet to soak the impact of the sudden expansion due to the OBC reservation policy and the after-effects of an ill-prepared semester program and have started showing cracks due to the presence of an unreasonably large number of temporary-adhoc teaching and non-teaching staff members.

Do we have no option but to listen to the tickles of the time-bomb and wait for its explosion at the time of admission that is set to devastate the University leaving it probably unable to reconstruct itself in a near future? University authorities seem to have time neither to listen to these apprehensions, nor dispel them and nor are they prepared to give us time to plug the loopholes to defuse the time-bomb.

What we need is at least one more year to assess the implications of the new program and make suitable corrections before experimenting with students’ future again.

Isn’t it time to fix responsibility?

(This article is published at the site http://governancenow.com/news/public-reporter/rape-isn-t-it-time-fix-responsibility )

No I am afraid, it is not a time to talk of 'azaadi' and freedom. We do not deserve that. Instead, it is an apt time to be reminded of our responsibilities. Two persons lying naked in pool of blood crying for help but left unattended for hours together should only ignite a sense of responsibility among us who chose only to be passers-by and were not human enough to offer a helping hand to them. Undoubtedly we must put the non-performing police to task for being engaged in unnecessary issues when they required an immediate medical help, didn’t we also try to compete with them and also deserve to share the blame for behaving as spectators in many such cases of atrocities against women. Isn’t it high time to thrash up our conscience if we still think that even a prostitute does not have a right to decline our advances? Isn’t it time to kill our instinct that makes us enjoy our act of disrespecting others’ sensibilities, be it of women in general or a community in specific if we ourselves would not be ready to take the same? Isn’t it time to crush this attitude of ourselves that makes us feel victorious when we rape a woman or violate others’ notions of dignity and faith? Are we responsible enough to remain alive if we think that we can establish our superiority using either our sex or exposure as our tool to achieve that? Aren’t we making a case of prescribing terminal treatment for us if we are hell bent on proving that drunkards (males/females) have a right to enjoy at any cost? Are humans mature enough to gracefully enjoy a self-restrained regime of ‘pub-culture’? Isn’t it time to accept finally that while sexually females are only humane but men are just beasts. And moreover, isn’t it time to ask somebody to kick our butt as we are not shy of using these incidents to instigate females to organize slut-walks just for our visual satisfaction? Isn’t it criminal to use these barbaric incidents to justify our meaningless anti-patriarchal agenda in order to make these unaware females expose to provide us an optical treat?

Let us not fall into the trap of these expose-centric, overtly-sexual and irresponsible comments of some intellectual rapists who have actually made us fall prey to their clandestine visual desires of enjoying exposure-exhibitions of rare and unaware females who honestly believe in their ill-twisted arguments. These hypocrites make these females willingly expose themselves believing that their liberty and freedom can be measured only by their skin show. In fact treating sex as our weapon is actually falling into rapists’ mentality as this is the method that even rapists adopt. Let us be equal but not by following these sexist-rapists who want us to expose in a slut-walk to please them as men never go naked just to prove their superiority. We must urge these unaware females to stop relating female-empowerment with their dare to expose themselves. It is time to fix responsibility on all senseless males and force them to behave sensibly but not by engaging ourselves in any irresponsible act in reaction.

We all are aware that in no society patriarchal or matriarchal, rape is an acceptable act. In fact some of the severest punishments, now in great demand, exist only in an overtly-patriarchal society. However, what goes against this structure is that it is understood to be easier to get away with this crime in a patriarchal society. But instead of rejecting a system as a whole, can’t we correct the system by treating the society disease by disease and symptom by symptom. We must prefer this since no society-structure has till date been unanimously established as a model structure and an overwhelming majority in India still think that our family-based society structure has many a features that are preserve-able and a subject of envy for other societies where unwanted kids and olds are huge problem to tackle.

The entire issue asks us to behave and think responsibly. It is clear that we are still not mature enough to draw our own Laxman-rekhas. We need to be punished for crossing our Laxman-rekha just as a Kingdom was destroyed and it’s King, a Brahmin 'Ravana', was killed because he dared to violate the Laxman-rekha that was drawn for him.  And Sita who can never be blamed for serving food to a hungry must also observe a greater precaution since a law, howsoever severe it may be, cannot force a drunk and mentally-imbalanced male not in his senses, to weigh the consequences of his barbaric act just as no amount of punishment has ever successfully prevented any crime completely in any part of this world. As we must realize that law and order is meant to act efficiently after a crime that can at best serve as a deterrent but a crime can be prevented completely only by creating the 'correct' mental awareness in a society.

Let us Change our Mindset

(article published at http://governancenow.com/news/public-reporter/let-us-change-our-mindset )

The incident is simply too cruel to be true. It is like a narration imported straight from a bollywood movie where the scriptwriter exaggerates the details of a rape scene only to justify a series of blood soaked revenge to be executed by the victim after the incident. A typical Indian-film hero needs an entry just at this stage to teach a lesson to the baddie. But the real fight ends with the last breath of the victim. What followed the incident needs a careful analysis. A spontaneous cry for justice from a society that is often inappropriately applauded for moving on with their usual daily life was only humane just to prove that the world is not full of dead. A live society must react to all such incidents ranging from terrorists attack to these beast-like murders but the protest must be peaceful and to an extent it can sometimes be non-compromising also. The anger that ignored the unexpectedly quick response of the police in arresting the culprits was also not inappropriate since they are known for their lackluster approach that they generally exhibit after such incidents. Demand for fast track courts and death penalty for such incidents and also pressing for a better conviction rate in such cases was long overdue and the vociferousness for these demands should not have awaited such incident.

Perverted minds however jumped into the scene to use it as justification for exposure in public life. Posters with captions like ‘If I show my legs, it does not mean that I am ready to spread it for you’ ….. ‘If you want to know that a girl is ready to have sex with you then ask, listen and respect her decision’ ….. ‘Exposure does not mean invitation’ ….. etc serve as examples in this case. I am afraid, how the caption writer is going to defend a person who goes on asking each one of us whether I would like to have sex with him or not? To me, whether he respects my decision or not is not as important as his intention itself behind asking the question itself. Whether he asks for sex in lieu of some quick cash or in return of some emotional bonding or would like to have it just for fun makes a hell lot of difference for me. To me, if exposure does not invite rape then exposure also does not help in preventing rape. Showing legs also is not going to help our cause in any way. The two aspects are not linked and hence should never be discussed simultaneously. To me, just as rape is unpardonable crime on a day, unnecessary exposure is also another avoidable act that may not be a crime but undoubtedly it can never be a noble-intention inviting gesture. But, just as some rapists fail to justify their crime by taking shelter behind their self-presumed ‘rape-inviting’ exposure, other variety of rapists use these incidents to initiate and invoke a race for exposure among the farer sex only to feed to their rape-laced intentions. It is this rapists-mindset that has inexplicably made the exposure of fairer sex a measure of their liberty. Look at films, fashion shows, and sports and you will see exposure only in females. Male tennis players do not oblige these set of rapists by exposing themselves as much as their female counterparts do. Beach volleyball female players, sprinters, swimmers, gymnasts and actresses fall prey to their tactics and oblige only these rapist-mindsets.

Demand to have death penalty for such offences should not have awaited such heinous crime to occur although we all are aware that even death penalty has not stopped murderers to commit murders. We can win this battle not only by changing our mindsets but also by preventing some rapists-mindsets who wait for these incidents to grab it as an opportunity to pollute our mindsets in order to satisfy their sex-laced concerns. We need to change our mindset and respect the sensitivity and liberty of the fairer sex who should also make an effort to invoke and win respect from the meaner sex and do not fall prey to the designs of the rapists mind-set who revel in encouraging exposure in public life.