Death of Science Courses in Delhi University

(edited version of this article has been published in Mail Today 6/6/2010 edition on page 4 http://epaper.mailtoday.in/Details.aspx?boxid=5445921&id=37546&issuedate=662010 ).

We have seen it happening before our eyes when a popular course such as B.Sc. (General) was being ruined before us by the earlier Vice-Chancellor Dr. Deepak Nayyar who changed it to B.Sc. (Programme). Now we are on the verge of witnessing the same fate destined for the other Science courses. I remember, only few years ago I was present in a meeting of science teachers that was called by Prof. S.K.Tandon for imposing a structural change in all the science courses. It was vehemently opposed by the teachers led by Late Dr. Swaminathan of St. Stephens. Forcing a bio-student to study mathematics and a non-medical science student to study bio-papers compulsorily was pointed out as one of the major reason of concern and it was warned that this factor itself had a potential to compel students to stay away from joining this course. Teachers were able to resist its implementation but unfortunately the whole resistance was cunningly interpreted as an opposition with regard to Honours courses and the same structure was clandestinely imposed on the B.Sc.(General) course. All nightmares that the teachers had visualized in the meeting have come true for the course. The result is everybody to see as the cut-off percentages have dropped alarmingly only for this course and majority of colleges are now unable to fill up the seats allotted to them. However we all know that Prof. Tandon was rewarded with the post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor after that.
In the current case, our present Vice-Chancellor seems to have written his own ‘bible’ and wants everybody to follow the same without questioning its utility, importance, relevance, desirability and feasibility. He seems to have got such a fixation with interdisciplinary courses that he thinks that all those who have otherwise a very good grasp on Zoology and Botany are absolutely worthless if they have not studied undergraduate mathematics. His ‘bible’ predicts that the Semester System is so important that even if it is taught by unwilling teachers and handled by incompetent authority present in the university and the examinations, it will solve all problems gripping the Delhi University education system. He believes that just because the UK and USA have it and just because the government ‘thinks?’ it should be there, the semester system should be adopted. The fact, that his ‘bible’ conveniently ignores, is the common knowledge that there are many foreign university ready to pay huge sum of seed money as registration charges and are forcing the HRD ministry and the Government to succumb to their diktats. They are willing to open corridors in the name of establishing educational institutions and will engage themselves in luring the Indian students studying undergraduate courses in Indian universities to encourage lateral shifts to similar courses at their campus. Only they are going to be benefited immensely if our university system collapses and in the process exposes our inability to handle the inherent difficulty and unmanageable contradictions associated with the semester system in our university environment. Our university education will be dumped to a corner that will be similar to the space occupied by the government schools in primary and secondary educations. We would just become irrelevant and they just want that. Their target seems to be to hurt the enviable crowd-pulling-ability of the maddening admission-seekers’-rush of our university.
I would like simple answers to the following open queries from those who have never bothered to answer any of these questions and even shied away from a much desirable debate in the Academic Council.
· In our university system, admissions are allowed till September. And this should not be stopped since colleges must be given chance to fill their vacant seats that are left by a majority of students availing the opportunity to move into either a better college or a better course. Admissions particularly in science courses get stabilized only in September as they get a chance to move to an engineering/medical college outside our university. Can anybody let me know that in the semester system how the hell they are supposed to get prepared for the semester examinations just after getting admitted in September? In our system at least first year of science courses should be annual even if somebody is hell-bent on imposing the semester system. For this reason the semester system can be successfully and somewhat meaningfully forced only in the second and third year.
· Can they provide a list of those benefits that can be achieved only in semester system but neither in an annual system and also nor in a system of continuous evaluation of students based on weekly tests? The fact remains that a system is never good or bad in absolute sense but one will have to assess that how frequently can examinations be held in a university having same course running in fifty plus colleges with number of students counting over several tens of thousands.
· In our university system where preparations, conduct and evaluation occupy whole year of the examination department for annual exam what steps they have taken to wrap the whole process in three to four months?We all know that due to some unavoidable local problems (such as a teacher going on a long leave or appointment of a fresh teacher taking inordinately long time while trying to follow the complex process being adopted by the university) appointment of a fresh teacher invariably gets delayed by a few months. In an annual system a fresh teacher always gets a chance to complete the syllabus by engaging some extra classes but how will this be possible in a semester system?

Reservation Policy with Reverse-Effort

.

The policy of caste-based reservations as it exists in our country has not been implemented with any vision for the eradication of the caste system and instead helps at maintaining it. Although the effect of this reservation is indeed visible as these days several castes are now being represented in some ‘high-profile’ jobs where their presence was never noticed. Many of the most sought after professions are these days not in the hands of very few castes alone as that used to happen in the past.
But did we achieve what was meant through the reservation policy?
Castes are generally connected with a particular profession. In my view the primary problem gripping the Indian society is not that castes are classified as lower and higher but that occupations attached with castes are graded as better and worse. This is why everybody wants to take up only a few of the ‘elite’ professions and the adversely affected majority press for proportionate representation of different castes in ‘those’ professions.
Can a society run where everybody is encouraged to take up only a few ‘preferred’ professions? Can a society survive without even one of the most ‘hated’ professions? Why a tailor’s occupation is looked down upon? Milking a cow and cleaning clothes are considered as low-grade professions? Why to broom is considered as an inferior work? Reservations should have aimed at changing our mind-set but unfortunately changing this perception is not the target of the existing policy of reservations. What happens in reality is that this only gives some of them a chance to become eligible for looking at those jobs as inferior ones to which their castes were earlier connected to.
In fact, basis of our reservation policy lies in the premise that the jobs of shoemakers, carpenters, barbers, mesons, plumbers and washer men are inferior to the jobs where reservation is in existence. Reservation actually works against the essence of dignity of work and instead denigrates these professions further.
The solution to this social problem in India exists in helping create an atmosphere wherein all kinds of professions are accepted as equally important. It is not easy to do this. Unfortunately even in a family differential treatment is given to different professionals in accordance with the hierarchy set out by our age-old society.

This change in our mind-set however can be initiated if we can make these occupations financially lucrative and economically attractive and start using latest technology to handle these jobs. Tailoring job done by a fashion designer or clothes-cleaning done by dry-cleaners and barber’s job done by a make-up man or by a hair-doer and job of a waste-disposal and management company never invite disrespect because these are financially better and hence socially acceptable professions. In addition to the existing reservation policy it would be of great help if the so called ‘elite castes’ start taking up these professions and show the society that how these professions can be improved with the use of latest technology and how it can be made financially attractive as well as socially acceptable.

the idiotic movie

Congratulations to HT and Sagarika ('idiot is as idiot does', Saturday January 16, 2010), at last I saw space given to some sensible discussions on the '3 idiots'. The discussion finds true relevance in the current situation when we are noticing some clear design to dilute our school studies (Kapil Sibal's?? vision) and also to wipe out the standard of our higher education (courtesy UGC-cum-Knowledge Commission efforts). While American President Obama urges his fellows to spend more time in the classrooms if they want to compete with Asian students, we are hell bent on aping them and lose our edge in this regard in the name of stress factor. I myself have been witness to the fact that even an average Indian student has always done very well in the West once he/she gets an opportunity. And this is precisely because an average student here spends much more time in studies than they do. Stress due to studies has always remained an urban phenomena in India. In my view, students do not feel the pressure of studies here, in fact they feel pressure for not able to justify their urge in spending time for unlimited fun that is at their easy-disposal in a metro-life. They find it difficult to get time for late-night partying, they do not get time for unnecessary biking and TV viewing, they get little justification for their urge for wasting time and money with their girlfriend/boyfriend in multiplexes, malls, useless video games and restaurants. Still these factors are much less compared to the avenues of fun that the students have at their disposal in the West. It is probably West's vision that if their students are not able to increase their time in studies then at least get the Asian students somehow out of the classes.
'bachpan toh gaya, jawani bhi gayi...ek pal toh hame jine doh' -- this great lyrics tells you that parents of the three idiots were still enjoying their youth while those idiots could not!!!! It was absurdly-funny to have those idiots seen as crying (instead of their parents!!!) that 'sari umra to mar-mar ke ji liye, thoda sa ab hame jine doh jine doh'. I have seen genius students in my more than 20 years of teaching career, but I am yet to encounter one who never prepares for any examination but still manages to top the class. As I understand, a genius of 'Amir'- kind, who is shown to be only interested in learning the subject, goes on to become a very good researcher, he can build a medical equipment using a vacuum cleaner but unfortunately it is only idiotic to show that he tops the batch by writing the answers better than the 4th idiot 'Chatur' and that too when the answer sheets are being marked by professors like Virus!

Women Empowerment!

.
I was shocked to see the advertisement (Mail Today, published on December 31, 2009, page 29) showing smiling and pleased-parents while seeing their drunk daughter, dressed in micros, being helped by a driver of a radio taxi to make her reach her home. Ms Kanika Gahlaut (Mail Today, January 7, 2010, ‘fashion addict’ LIFEstyle page 26) has tried to analyse the scene from entirely an extra-intellectual perspective (in a way that avoids attention of the 'pink chaddies' campaigners), but let me admit that I am not afraid of their ‘pink chaddies’ in case they decide to fling this way as I know that they do not need them any way! Kanika, you are missing your own point. Fact is that however liberal you try to become (by asking questions on the relevance of any kind of moral policing) there is always something that can always shock you and make you a moral police as you did in your article by stating what one actually wears (thereby meaning that what one should wear) while going for a drink-party (of course in order to lose their senses). According to my sensibilities, if women think there is nothing wrong in falling-drunk in someone’s lap as long as ‘licking the pavement’ after getting drunk is avoided; if they think that there is nothing wrong in ‘bending over a pot with their fingers down the throat’ as far as they take precautions for not ‘displaying their knickers’ while doing so and if they think that there is nothing wrong in ‘losing their dignity’ if they are doing so without ‘compromising their modesty’, then it just means that they can never agree with somebody who has a problem with all these in their first instances itself. On the other hand how can you be so sure that no women would like to go for the extremes that have been projected by you as avoidable?
Truth is that if (as Kanika means) women think that they will not live to men’s fantasy if they get drunk with all their clothes on, then they just do not know men. Men know that one step will lead to the other. Men fantasise about drunk-woman who can be dressed (undressed?) according to their wishes. If women think that it is they who enjoy while drinking in a party then I must enlighten them that in fact men enjoy more in seeing them drinking. All men, of course those who do not enjoy their family life, encourage women to take up drinking so that they can enjoy their company. These men know that in the name of women liberation and women empowerment they can always make women to live their fantasies while making them realise that they are actually being empowered. These men know that in the name of making artistic calendars, bold movies and happening parties they can satisfy their porno-hungry intents. I can only hope that instead of flinging ‘chaddies’ towards others and dancing-drunk to the tunes of the fantasies of these disgruntled men they just start wearing them.