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.
