SESSIONS In the second seminar all the key-note addresses were presented in the session following the inauguration. This pattern was followed in order to provide longer discussion sessions on the topic themes identified for the seminar.
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KEYNOTE ADDRESSES
Topic : Improvement in Efficiency Prof B. Chatterjee, Vice-Chancellor, Rabindra Bharati University delivering his keynote address, drew the attention of the group to general resistance to change and the fact that the present day environment coupled with inadequate infrastructure make it extremely difficult to operate the university system with any efficiency. While appreciating the efforts made by agencies to implement the POA, he deplored that there is hardly any realistic assessment of needs and priorities; modernization is welcome but not without taking into account reality; more responsibilities are welcome but not meaningful when there is no work ethos punctuated by consciousness of rights alone with no corresponding consciousness of duties. He was of the firm opinion that primary, secondary, vocational and technical education have all been neglected and even the NPE and POA have not taken into account the fact that not all universities can become centres of excellence. Nevertheless, he felt that if a genuine account of the present inadequacies is taken, there can be hope for improving efficiency.
Topic : Language Development & Cultural Perspective Dr. R. Mukherjee, delivering the keynote address on Language Development and Cultural Perspective, suggested that the country's socio-cultural reality namely, unity in diversity together with humanism manifested in man being the embodiment of divinity and an important human resource, must form the backdrop for language development. He felt that every attempt must be made to infuse Indianness, to keep the society multilingual and to make teaching of languages compulsory through the secondary stage. He made positive and practical suggestions in that every syllabus for a course in language should have cultural content and value orientation and that a separate department of Culture and Fine Arts should be set up in every institute of higher learning. While disagreeing with the statement that the role of state governments shall remain the same, he felt that the disparity that exists in per capita expenditure on a central university and a state university student should be removed forthwith.
Topic : Mobility of Teachers & Students Prof. S.P. Banerjee in his keynote address on 'Mobility of Teachers and Students' made several practical suggestions for promoting mobility like, learning of several languages, incentives to teachers, frequent exchange of teachers and development of inter- cultural linkages. Mobility of students in his opinion would pose several problems including
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financial and it would be better to promote cultural and sports programmes involving student mobility. He was of the opinion that a strong political will, will go a long way in promoting mobility.
Topic: Making the System Work Mr. G.B.K. Hooja and Mr. K. Khullar delivered keynote addresses on Making the System Work. Both of them appreciated that insistence on imposition of rigid uniformity or lifeless discipline will not be in consonance with the general tenor of NPE and that the process to be followed in creating a new educational order has to be participatory, cooperative and based on renewed faith in the country's future. The essential aspects that they stressed were:
a) Certain norms of performance must be laid down for observation by the administration, teachers, students and educational institutions. It should be made clear that these norms are non-negotiable.
b) Non-observance of these norms should inevitably lead to certain consequences.
c) Some immediate measures have to be taken to improve the working conditions of teachers and the conditions in which students study and live. Similarly, with regard to educational institutions immediate steps need to be taken to improve the overall working conditions.
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THIRD SEMINAR
DATES JUNE 27-29, 1988
VENUE University of Poona, Pune
TOPICS * Teachers' Training
* Restructuring of Courses
* Research & Extension
* Education for Women, SC & ST, Backward
Minorities and the Handicapped
INAUGURATION The third seminar was organised at Pune from 27th to 29th June, 1988. 37 participants from 17 universities and 9 Vice-Chancellors attended the Seminar.
welcoming the distinguished Vice Chancellors from Universities in the region and other participants, Dr V G Bhide, Vice Chancellor, University of Poona, drew attention to the fact that education in general and higher education in particular, provides strength to society and is perceived to be responsible for economic and social development of the country. He reiterated that the system of higher education, in coping with problems related to increasing number of students, exponential increase in knowledge and above all the decreasing resources, has come to a stage when it requires strengthening and reorientation to serve as an effective instrument of social change.
Dr L K Doraiswamy, Director, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, who inauguarated the seminar, felt that there was no single answer to the question of what constituted a university in today's context. Despite several shortcomings, to which he drew attention, he struck a positive note saying that the Indian university system was unique; it was alive to the changing needs of society, and allowed scope for work in every conceivable area. He suggested that in addition to planning as an intellectual activity, cooperative effort for implementation of programmes and activities must form an integral part of the university system. He was of the view that the present day university system, while promoting intellectual freedom, lacked in mental discipline with the result that the the university was perceived as a place of strikes, dharnas, etc. and was found to be slowly deteriorating. He said that immediate steps need to be taken to bring back the university into its earlier state and re-orient and integrate it with national objectives and international needs in research.
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While drawing a clear distinction between education and training, he suggested that the universities must remain at a level where natural freedom of the human mind to do original and creative things, to advance and extend boundaries of knowledge and activate the whole mind of those who pass through it, was preserved and they remained institutions of learning and research rather than institutions of training and skill development. He felt that there was a danger in talking of relevance in education in the context of explosion of knowledge; the question of relevance is short-lived and the emphasis must be on changing requirements. He was of the opinion that talent must be identified, nurtured and encouraged. Talking of industry- institution relationship in the context of higher education, he said that it was for the university to generate ideas, for the laboratory to take up the ideas and make them into a project and eventually for the industry to apply and make use of these ideas.
KEYNOTE ADDRESSES Dr. (Miss) Bengalee, Vice Chancellor of Bombay University delivering a leynote address on "Teachers and Their Training", drew attention to the changing role of teachers and perceived the teacher as a human engineer. She strongly advocated teacher education in place of teacher training, as in the modern context, teacher training was no more relevant and teacher education much more comprehensive. She pointed out that the objectives of higher education and particularly those of teacher education, as outlined in the National Policy on Education, involved the teacher in the areas of developing knowledge, communication ability, skills, attitudes, values, imagination and creativity in students and also in sensitising them to develop love and compassion, enhancing employability and developing mental health and discipline. Talking of equity, quality and efficiency, she said that the majority of our teachers should be trained for the nonformal system since nearly 60 million students, as opposed to 30 million in the formal system, will have to be tackled in the non-formal system. According to her, the national policy on education in terms of improvement at all levels, had laid emphasis on Navodaya Schools, and teacher development must be a major component of training programme for university teachers. She felt that teachers were linchpins in the system and that they must form not only a part of the educational system in the universities but also participate in other programmes like the massive programme of functional literacy.
She was of the opinion that academic staff colleges must orient new entrants in teaching of content and subject updating, methods and techniques of teaching, professional growth and personal development and general awareness. She appealed to Vice Chancellors and others in the seminar that every effort must be made to organise special programmes for
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curriculum construction and to slowly develop teacher resource centres in every educational institution.
Dr Ram Takwale, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Poona, presenting a keynote address on "Restructuring of Under- graduate Courses and National Policy of Education" emphasised that higher education was a crucial factor for the survival and development of humanity. He felt that higher education reflected on critical social, economic. cultural, moral, and spritual issues facing humanity and contributed to national development through specialised knowledge and skill.
Among the various problems of education he singled out the redesigning of undergraduate courses as the procedure to integrate and introduce most of the other objectives in the Programme of Action. He suggested that the restructuring of courses on the whole should offer educational and learning facilities for the total development in intellectual abilities, skills and appropriate value system. It should clearly establish links between education which functions for human resource development, social utilization, and self development. He then proceeded to give details of the following model of restructuring adopted by the University of Poona :
Component Weightage
A. Foundation Courses 5-25%
B. Core Courses 50-65%
C. Applied Courses 15-25%
D. Vocational Courses 5-10%
E. Personality Development and
Community Service Courses 5-10%
F. Project Work/Work Experience 5-10%
He felt that in order that restructuring be successfully implemented over-centralization, regidity of system, external pressures and internal inertia including financial inadequacy must be eliminated in phases and the restructured curriculum should be uniformly adopted by all the colleges affiliated to a, university.
Mr K K Khullar, in his keynote address on Education for Women, SC & ST Backward Minorities and Handicapped said
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etc. that there should be a separate programme of action for education of women, SC and ST and minorities which should be comprehensively looked at by all sectors, viz. formal, non formal, universities and voluntary agencies, and every effort should be made to meet the national target set-out in the Programme of Action.
Dr. (Mrs.) Sneh Bhargava, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi reiterated that out of the 13000 medical graduates' positions in 152 colleges in the country, only 30% of them accounted for women. She deplored the fact that there was only one nurse for every 2.1 doctors as against the world standard of 5 to 6 nurses per doctor. Nearly 80,000 nurses were required in India of whom only 6000 were trained every year. She called for urgency in the matter of providing for extra nursing education to meet the challenges of health for all by 2000 A.D.
Dr V G Bhide, Vice Chancellor, University of Poona, in his keynote address on "Research and Extension", redefined the role of universities in the area of teaching, research and extension, in that the main emphasis should be on advancement of new knowledge, new abilities/skills. In the context of considerable reduction in the period of obsolescence from 30 years to 3 years today, our country, he felt, could not remain on borrowed technology and should increasingly develop its own techonology. He described in great details, steps taken, programmes and activities undertaken by the University of Poona, in the last few years to give a pride of place to research and extension, namely:
a) linking up every department of the Natural Sciences/Social Sciences/Humanities with a corresponding National Agency,
b) organising postgraduate teaching in science in collaboration with National Institutes, and
c) constituting inter-disciplinary research groups for several programmes in collaboration with industry, viz. Know Your University and Own Your University,
OPEN DISCUSSION In the open discussion several points were raised and as a result of these discussions, two groups emerged, Group I to deliberate on Teachers and their Training and Restructuring of Courses, and Group II on Education for Women, SC, ST, Backward Classes and the Handicapped, and also Research and Extension.
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GROUP DISCUSSION The second day of the Seminar was spent on detailed discussions in two groups.
On the third day of the Seminar before the Valedictory function, the group reports were presented. Several suggestions and modifications made by the Plenary were incorporated in the group reports.
VALEDICTORY Dr. Udgaonkar, former member UGC and Director, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, while delivering the valedictory address, posed the very fundamental question as to what constitutes a university. He suggested that in accordance with the National Policy on Education, every university must move to centre-stage, meaning thereby that it should build excellence. Violently disagreeing with the suggested distinction between education and training, he felt that all education has a component of training and all training a component of education and that it is not worthwhile to distinguish between the two. While taking pride in his individual role in introducing "extension" as the third dimension in the university system sometime ago, he deplored the situation that there is still a large gap between social activity on the one hand and academic pursuits on the other.
While talking about language, he felt that the problem exists in all three 1st, 2nd and 3rd languages, and that the place of English is to be decided vis-a-vis the regional language as medium of instruction.
On restructuring of courses, he felt that it should be more than syllabus writing and that sheer number of students may completely alter the concept of restructuring. He was for decentralization and autonomy but not at the expense of accountability, and he was happy that after nearly a decade the concept of autonomy has been accepted.
He also suggested that it is high time that norm setting examinations at the national levels must be organised by the proposed National Testing Service. Finally, he felt that the university must see that there is collective responsibility for excellence and built in credibility in its working.
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FOURTH SEMINAR
DATES JULY 25-27, 1988
VENUE Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai
TOPICS * Education in Human Values
* Autonomous Colleges and Depts
* Evaluation & Accreditation of Institutions
* State Councils for Higher Education
* Evaluation process and Examination Reforms
INAUGURATION The fourth National Seminar on 'Implementation and Monitoring of New Education Policy' was held at Madurai Kamaraj University during 25th to 27th July, 1988. In all 8 Vice Chancellors from 25 Universities and 50 other participants attended the Seminar.
Dr S Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor, Madurai Kamaraj University welcomed the gathering. He said that the National Policy on Education meant business and was action oriented. He suggested the deliberations in small groups must focus on identifying ways and means of implementing the policy.
Dr S V Chittibabu, Former Vice Chancellor, Madurai Kamaraj University, Annamalai University and President of Association of Indian Universities, inaugurated the Seminar. He suggested that the (sweet) thoughts of the policy must be translated into vibrant action. He paid glowing tributes to the Association of Indian Universities on its role of a catalytic agent in motivating universities towards action-oriented programmes. He made an appeal to teachers for attitudinal changes and requested them to identify ways and means of rescuing higher education from the clutches of vested interests. He further requested teachers to guard against mutilation of human spirit, and to manifest joy of learning, thirst for knowledge, pleasure in creation and sense of self.
He suggested that educationists should see that the educational institutions are not polluted by non-academic activities. Intellectuals should not become confused personalities with a conflict between tradition and modernity, but must form a unified academic community in the interest and cause of education. He advocated inter- disciplinary approach to solve educational problems. He was for autonomy for institutions which had programmes for experimentation and innovation.