Friday, 12 October 2018

A Small Step for a Giant Leap


                                             A Small Step for a Giant Leap
Four years and four months ago a new government was elected,  promising manna  in the form of jobs for the unemployed youth, of crediting to the account of every citizen a sum of 15 lakhs of rupees by confiscating black money  and  achche din( good days) for the entire nation under an honest corruption free government with a slogan “minimum government, maximum governance”,   offering absolute safety and security from internal and external foes ( especially from our Western neighbours). There was also considerable mockery and criticism  of the way the previous government handled farmers’ problems, unclean environment, fuel price rise and rupee depreciation against dollar with the tag line that we will reverse all these and many  more of their wrong doings as well as their non- doings, aptly described as “policy paralysis”. The party’s promises also included better educational standards and quality healthcare. Only fools with walls in their minds would have blocked the rise of the BJP to high offices with such wholesome promises of greener pastures. India proved she had fewer fools by voting BJP to power almost en bloc with added support from its alliance partners.
With just a few months to go before the party in power seeks once again a fresh mandate, it has already planned for the final sprint with a renewal of promises on educational and health projects as a carryover from the partially fulfilled agenda of 2014. I am not interested in fault finding for promises not fulfilled  or waxing eloquent over achievements that are more in the form of doing the same things as done in the past, maybe  in a different and possibly better way (such as the extension of Aaadhar towards social welfare projects and implementation of GST, to name a few  ). That is how political parties when they come to power work since they have the power to do what they want to do and the power not to do what they cannot do in a short span of five years.
Having been only in the academic profession all through my working years, my concern  centres round the PM’s promise of greater funding for higher education which is perceptibly on the decline affecting a large number of young men and women whose future is dependent on what they receive in schools, colleges and universities. This is of cardinal importance to the future of any nation, for what tomorrow’s leaders receive today, is what they will give in the years to come. The Prime Minister has promised during his centenary address at Patna university a bonanza of Rs.10,000 crores for five years( it is not clear if it is 10,000 crores each year or cumulatively for five years) and autonomy  to 10 private and public universities if they show the potential to become  world class institutions. Implied in this promise is the hidden truth that our universities have till now been denied adequate funding and autonomy which are essential to reach excellence. The PM’s announcement is a small and a significant step towards reforming higher education.
But the questions that remains to be answered are:
(a) Whether pumping more money alone can spur the institutions to become world class and break into the top ten of world ranking?  Allied to this central question are many more.
 (b) What is the definition of a world class institution?  Is it possible to have one single uniform criteria for world class institutions? Will that not be a case of one size fits all?
(c) What other bottle necks impede the efforts of realizing this ambitious prospect?
 (d) Why our universities have not been world class all these years?
(e) Is it only lack of funds and lack of autonomy that have been the cause of a steady decline in our standards ?or
(f)  Has there been a deeper malaise that educationists, policy makers and educational administrators have failed to address?
The answer to the first question whether pumping money alone will remove the flaws in our educational system is an emphatic ‘No’.  We have to first find answers to all the questions raised above and recognize the core problems before doling out monetary solutions which seem attractive, but likely to get smothered if those problems are not removed. It is like the doctor prescribing mild analgesics and antipyretic drugs on the phone without examining the patient to find out the root cause of the disease.  Lack of funding and want of autonomy are the overt manifestations of the disease, but not the root cause of the ailment.  Unless the root cause for the malaise is identified, money alone cannot solve the problem.
The second question is what is a world class institution?   It is a handy catch phrase though it is highly subjective as the requirements of different countries vary in terms of educational input and the desired outcome. In simple, direct terms, it means institutions that are the best-in-class, institutions that serve as models and set benchmarks of excellence. This is generally assessed in terms of (1) students; (2) research undertaken and (3) the institutional engagement with the civic society towards contribution to the social, cultural, aesthetic  and ethical life of society.
The last few questions (b to f) relate to the root cause of the steady decline in quality and standards of education in  our Universities and other Higher education Institutions.  The ailment is mainly one of nutritional deficiency.  The quality of input and of the output have been weak and anaemic. The growth and development of an institution depends on two generic factors- on how much it is capable of growing and what nutritional supplements are needed to ensure that growth. A Tamil proverb succinctly says that the swelling on a finger is proportion to its size.  It is not necessary that all world class institutions are those that offer multi dimensional courses; what is to be taken note of is how each institution rises in excellence within the limits it sets for itself.
Till  the 1960s –after which  the euphoria of a new born  Independent nation started waning- the urgent need was  to have stand alone institutions like the Management Institutes(IIMs), Technological institutes(IITs), Science Centres (that were further divided into research centres for Physics, Chemistry, Molecular Biology,  etc).  On the Humanities and Social Sciences side,  Centres for Philosophical research, Institute of Economic growth, Institute for Mathematical sciences, Institute for Statistics,  Council for Social Science Research etc were set up.  This resulted in compartmentalization of knowledge inhibiting these centres from developing into wholesome knowledge creating institutions. This is in no way casting aspersions on the excellent work done by these existing stand alone centres, but what needs for an institution to gain world class status is the provision for transdisciplinarity to encourage a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries and create a holistic research. We need new centres that focus on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, so that concepts originally developed by one discipline can be widely referred to and used by other disciplines. The current inability to assimilate knowledge from different frontiers and use it for development distances our knowledge centres from achieving all round excellence. At present the emphasis is on the parts and not on the whole which  is interdependent on  its parts.
This atomistic approach has resulted in a profusion of doctorates with expertise in limited areas. It is seen In colleges where a doctorate in inorganic chemistry cannot teach organic and physical chemistry or a doctorate in ancient history is clueless about medieval or modern history(where again the division is between European, Asian, American, British and Indian history) . It seems our teachers are like an orthopedic surgeon who claims that he can operate only the thumb as his specialization does not include  the little or the middle fingers. This kind of specialization is deleterious to acquiring wholesome knowledge and imparting them to the students. No wonder our young students are bored and listless in the classrooms when there is no effort to string the thread of knowledge across different disciplinesand make it interesting and absorbing.
The decline in standards has been further facilitated by the semester system where knowledge is given in a rationed way. The student never learns to connect the different courses spread out thinly through six /four semesters(three years of undergraduate study/ two years of Post graduate study). It is easy for the students to secure high grades by reading limited courses without ever stretching the mind to connect them on a broader scale.  The present state illustrates the well known proverb what one knows is equal to the amount of sand that one holds in the palm;  what one does not know is the vast sand stretched on the shore. As is the raja, so is the praja( as is the king, so is the subject) If teachers have compartmentalized knowledge, students will receive not even one tithe of that knowledge. The earlier system of three full years with well mapped out courses gave us a more enhanced learning than what is given today.
Then comes the inbreeding in universities and colleges where the question papers are set and moderated by the teachers teaching in the colleges/ in the university departments. The questions are set within the limited portions of the already abbreviated courses and the evaluation generously done so that no college / university department is shown in poor light. The internal evaluation in the college ensures that every student gets a minimum of 18/ 25 that often goes to absurd lengths of 24/25.  Is there any sanctity in such evaluation? No wonder students enter and exit with zero degree mental development albeit with a paper degree on hand. Unless there is a return to the older system where the student evaluation is done with confidentiality, one cannot expect any progressive change in the standards of learning and assessment.  In the ‘90s when we were university teachers, the confidentiality of the paper setters and the examiners was strictly enforced. Answer papers were jumbled and new numbers were pasted on them so that no one knew whose paper was being corrected. These false numbers were all systematically done even when there was no computer to match them with the original numbers. The errors in results were marginal.
 If the faculty has to make cross connections between different disciplines, it has to undergo intensive training for a year or so after being recruited on the basis of a written examination and a viva voce as it is done for civil services. There has to be three papers for the examination- the subject paper, a paper on allied discipline and  a third one on General knowledge that tests the candidate’s potential to use knowledge for the welfare and development of society. The facical Net examination of today has to be replaced by a broad based examination that tests both the knowledge acquired in the subject and the candidate’s potential to harness that knowledge in a connective web.  Selected candidates must be given  one year training where lecture series are arranged to provide the missing links in their learning to enable the teachers to understand the intricate strands that weave the web of knowledge. The present atrophied smugness of being a specialist of a small area of a discipline has to be modified to embrace a wider area of knowledge that has no defined limits.  One has to be constantly reminded of C.P.Snow’s  criticism of arbitrary division of knowledge into sciences and humanities that has made illiterates of those who know  only Shakespeare and not Newton’s Laws of motion and vice versa.
 Teaching methodology has not changed to keep pace with the information and electronic age. The insistence of self study has to be introduced to bring the best out of students. Most lectures delivered today repeat what is given in the books. This is a big mistake that saps the interest of the students as knowledge in terms of facts and data , is available at the press of a key and can be retrieved on the internet. This is an age that has brought technology closer home.  The teaching should be catalytic to open the students’ minds to new ways of thinking that go beyond factual details. The lectures have to be highly condensed, capsular and adequate to inspire the students to study at greater depth. New age teachers have to get training  to prepare and deliver interesting lectures that lead the students to the frontiers of knowledge and perk their curiosity to learn more  on their own. The present system of teaching  in an overly simplified way that discourages independent thought has to be replaced by dynamic, initiative education that is inspirational, interesting  and imparts a strong influence on the young minds.
Man, Machine and ethics are three important dimensions of today’s living. Many of our physical and mental activities have been replaced if not totally atrophied by technology that has taken over them. Young students must be made aware of the new technological future that is working more and more towards building Artificial intelligence (AI)  which is significantly smarter and better than human minds. What will be the future of humanity  if machines replace minds? Similarly the advanced research in Genetic engineering has the potential to  seek and preserve better than average genes and discard less than ordinary genes and this can result in the “emergence of genetic class structure, genetic aristocracy and proletariat”(Peter Singer).  Aldous Huxley in his dystopian novel, Brave New World Revisited, published in 1931 had warned of a dark ‘utopian’ future where humans are bred genetically and pharmaceutically. Teaching in our new age has to see the inter connection between science, fiction and ethics. This year’s Nobel prize for Economics awarded to Paul Romer and William Nordhaus signals the critical roles of technology and pollution in growth. It is colleges and universities that have the responsibility to determine a country’s economic growth and sustainable development. Unless teachers factor in a holistic understanding of knowledge in broad domains, it is impossible to give world class education. Each nation has its own problems and priorities. To be world class institution does not necessarily mean copying what other world class institutions have achieved. Assessing the needs of the nation and working out courses to enhance a holistic approach to them is what makes an institution world class. Peter Singer says  “My hope is that we will use technology to bring about a better life for all in a more egalitarian way that helps those who are worst off. That is where we can do the greatest amount of good.”  Quality teachers for the new age institutions is needed to make them world class.

Last but not the least. The intake of students is of utmost importance for universities to live up to the idea of a university. It has to be the powerhouse of knowledge that has to be used for the betterment and improvement of the society. The five finger theory of all being not equal and each has its own function and use has to be borne in mind when we admit students. Those with a genuine love for knowledge and research have to be in institutions that seek world class status. The PM’s gift of 10,000 crores will enable the best- in- class institutions to improve research facilities and infrastructure. These can be well utilized only by students who have research aptitude.
College is a place that opens a new world to the students. A big part of growing up as an adult is to learn to be financially independent. There is little discussion of the way that our students with their financial dependence on parents feel obligated to go for professional courses and not study humanities or liberal arts  and thereby lose out on a major source of learning that has a direct bearing on society, fellow beings and cultivation of aesthetic sensibility. Unfortunately opposition to humanities degrees is based more on prejudice than on actual job prospects. And it's also often linked to politics, According to Matt Gabriele, head of the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech,  “The right-wing media has spent decades demonizing university professors and students; some conservatives seem to fear humanity professors in particular will indoctrinate students or intimidate budding conservatives”.
If Indian universities have to be world class, they have to re- write  their strategies , delink jobs from degrees,  improve the quality of the faculty through special training that centres round transdisciplnarity, admit only students with genuine interest and desire for  knowledge acquirement, knowledge preservation and knowledge expansion.  The others can be accommodated by institutions that train them to be job worthy and intellectually trained to be independent to make important choices for themselves and develop citizenship that rests on cultivating humanity. Certainly money matters, but matters relating to knowledge exploration cannot be resolved only through money. World Class institutions have to mesh quality input with quality output as per the demands of society and nation.
Well begun is half done. The PM’s promise is a small step that can prove a giant step to make our universities upwardly mobile.