response to - 'Teachers, isn't it time to teach'

I read the threat by Dr. Sunil Sondhi (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article487680.ece) wherin he has tried to remind us of our duties. The author seems to be suffering from an extreme myopic understanding on education. Recently when even school teaching has started giving attention towards all-round development of students, he thinks that learning is only done in the classrooms. His handicapped vision needs immediate correction wherein he argues that students’ elections, festivals and other co-curricular activities are wastage of time. He must be enlightened that for an all-round development of a student one needs to have some leadership qualities (developed during students elections), some organizational skills (developed during organizing festivals) as well as some team-spirit that are developed during other extra-curricular activities. I understand that there is no substitute to student-teacher interaction but it should include their guidance in all these activities along with the classroom interaction and discussions on the course-content. In fact we also have an added responsibility to educate them by showing live-examples exhibiting our own reactions towards an autocratic functioning a vice-chancellor as he decides to flout all rules, regulations and established practices and procedures of governance. Lastly I would ask him to be careful in future while extrapolating his data for schools onto the colleges and would remind him that unlike schools where parents prefer private institutions compared to the government schools actually many government colleges/institutions are rated better than the private money-generating institutions. Amity and Ansal institute of technology are starved of good students whereas IITs, DCE, DIT and NITs get flooded by brilliant students. And no one needs to be educated about the enviable record of attracting admission seekers that Delhi University exhibits during admission-time year after year. I agree that there is an immense scope for improvement but that can be achieved only by including teachers in this process and not by neglecting those who have made this University the most sought after of all Indian universities.