Educated men or just college pass-outs

Strike announced by the Delhi University Teachers Association was immediately followed by yet another threatening letter shot from the office of the registrar at the behest of Prof. Pental. This exhibits their callous approach towards the whole issue of semesterisation and reveals their sheer indifference while ignoring the plight of the teachers of Delhi University who have been fighting what may ultimately turn out to be their last battle for their right of being involved in any decision-making process at a place hitherto considered as ‘their’ university. This university is unique in the sense that teachers have constitutionally been provided enough democratic space that allows their involvement in all decision-making processes so much so that all decisions are owned up by them. Teachers feel pride in owning up their decisions and that makes them responsible enough to share an unblemished record of having never violated the academic calendar of Delhi University. Delhi University has never seen any academic session getting delayed due to any teachers’ strike. In this university college teachers have hitherto been involved in framing rules, observing rules, framing syllabi, students’ elections, admissions, paper setting, evaluation and reevaluations, tabulation of results and moderations wherever required. This has helped teachers in making this place one of the most sought after as viewed by the school pass-outs. Owing to this democratic format the University has witnessed countless revision of courses and contrary to the belief of Mr. Pental the teachers themselves were instrumental in almost all of them. Prof. Pental and the Registrar who seems to have little knowledge of the past traditions and practices of this great university has cheeks to remind teachers of the best traditions of this institution!
The letter mentions that due to frequent strikes the examinations are now being rescheduled. It is just absurdly curious to note that the teachers have never given a call for strike demanding rescheduling of examinations? Who asked for rescheduling of examinations? Certainly not teachers as their demand of initiation of a proper discussion on the feasibility and desirability of the proposed course structure is well publicized and has been unambiguously communicated to the authorities. Prof. Pental and his team members have been claiming throughout that teachers are participating voluntarily in teaching the semester based courses barring a miniscule counted number of self proclaimed representatives and DUTA activists. Then why was rescheduling of the examinations done? If it was demanded by the students then prior to succumbing to their demands the teachers must have been taken into confidence in order to ensure that they use this rescheduling for covering up the syllabus. The process of rescheduling of examinations could have been meaningful only if the authorities would have attended to what they have ignorantly admitted in the process that teachers are striking work in support of the cause taken up by DUTA and are not willing to give up their right of being a part of any academic decision making process.
But it is now amply clear that the intention of the university and HRD ministry combine seems to be to humiliate teachers and force them to teach (even if they do that unwillingly) a course that teachers consider as undesirable. A half-cooked and ill-conceived structure where it is not clear as to how exactly the practical examinations are to be conducted or students are to be evaluated and how internal assessment marks are to be assigned, only Prof. Pental and Mr. Registrar have the vision of getting this implemented with the active support of the HRD ministry apparently acting under some greater plan. Let me correct Mr. Registrar that this is exactly what has never been our best tradition. I will remind him that in keeping with the best traditions of this great university Prof. Pental should have had by now left this university and others should have had initiated the process of involving teachers in the course revision. How an educated lot of well meaning teachers can own up a half-baked course that has forcibly been thrown upon them? How a set of humiliated teachers after losing their dignity by signing a bond under the threat of withholding their salary is expected to perform their duty of inculcating education with values to the students? What are they suppose to teach? How the teachers after having felt insulted can inspire students?
It seems they do not want teachers to produce confident and educated men capable of taking stands and instead they just want to have mere college pass-outs at their disposal who will be willing to go to any extent to earn their bread and butter.

Mandir Sabhi Banayenge

Yes Mr. Yechury (‘Not About Blind Faith’, October 12, 2010 issue of HT on page 12), justice is a pre-requisite for reconciliation but then why don’t you agree that justice has been done in ‘Ayodhya’ and it is time for reconciliation. You are right in asserting that justice can never be blind, in fact justice is divine and can only be done by keeping your eyes open. However, against your liking Mr. Yechury, when your eyes are open then it will not only view 10 years back (when a structure was demolished that was built 500 years ago) but much beyond that. We all understand why is ‘Ayodhya’ known for and we all know that it has never been identified with the structure that Babar had built up. ‘Ayodhya’ belongs to the pilgrims who identify ‘Ayodhya’ as birth place of Ram and not only to the locals who largely depend on the pilgrims’ activities. But the court order has correctly reminded the chanters of ‘mandir vahin banayenge’ that either ‘mandir sabhi banayenge’ or ‘mandir nahin banega’. The very fact that now a mandir can be made only if it is allowed by all the three owners only reaffirms our sense of secularism that India stands for. Unfortunately the court did not satisfy those pseudo-seculars who wanted Babri structure to be built at the same place. A mandir built by hindu-muslim combine will in fact lay the foundation of secularism that India understands. One must admit that the court decision is equally uncomfortable for all the parties involved in the suit but it shows a way ahead also to them. However the decision has come as a setback only for those who had wished to humiliate the majority and are now in no mood to leave any stone unturned in order to ensure that minority feels humiliated. This set of people will do everything to make sure that a brilliant court verdict of recent times is wasted despite all efforts of positive reconciliation.

Mr. Pental – prove yourself a Teacher

A careful glance at the Prime Minister’s message on the teacher’s day will appear as if he is reminding our Vice-Chancellor of some etiquette and culture that was completely missing during his tenure that has already expired. I quote verbatim from our Prime Minister’s speech on the teacher’s day September 5, 2010 – “Sadly, teachers are often excluded from policy making, governance and management of our educational system as also from day-to-day instructional strategies and decision making. In our endeavour for educational reforms we must, therefore, emphasize the empowerment of teachers and that includes real opportunity for them to share policy perspectives and decision-making in pursuit of educational development and reforms. It is my belief that all teachers are creative, talented people; teachers respond remarkably when they are respected and included in the decision-making integral to their work in the classroom. They gain a sense of ownership over their work and their classrooms, when they are involved in the development of the curriculum, designing of the syllabus, making and selecting of teaching materials and in training programmes leading to their own intellectual and professional development.” ( please visit http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-35103.html for the complete message). This statement clearly reasons out the failure of B.Sc. Program courses and recently implemented B.Sc. (H) Mathematics course.

Our unwanted vice-chancellor has recently been looking for some non-academic and un-teacher-like (read shameless) excuse by finding a hitherto unused provision given in the University Acts that exists only for those stubborn and unethical users who has no prestige at stake and is willing to continue as an unwanted vice-chancellor in the absence of any extension (read - when nobody is willing to give him extension). It is high time that our Vice-chancellor wakes up from the state of selective amnesia and starts recalling even those ordinances where rights of teachers in affecting syllabus-making and decision-taking is clearly and unambiguously written. Now the only way left for him to prove that some teacher-like-quality is still left within him – is to quit from his post without any delay.

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.