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17 décembre 2011

Reforms in higher education be linked with global changes

http://www.thehindu.com/template/1-0-1/gfx/logo.jpgThe Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) Vice-Chairman T.P. Sreenivasan has said that any debate on reforms in higher education sector in the country should take into account the rapid changes occurring in the world.
Inaugurating the 'National seminar on higher education in India: challenges and prospects' organised by the Kannur University Union on the university campus at Mangattuparamba here on Tuesday, Mr. Sreenivasan, former diplomat, said that education should cater to the requirements of future. The whole mammoth endeavour of educating the millions in the country would elicit wonder as to how it had worked so far and how it would work in future, he said. The academic community, perhaps, was the only segment in society that resists any changes, he said adding that when the change was imposed it was done half-heatedly. Unless the change was accepted, the academic community could not equip students for future, he added.
Stressing the importance of employability as a major purpose of education, Mr. Sreenivasan said that unless the educational institution was able to provide its students knowledge and skills that would help them earn a living, education would fail to serve its purpose. He also said that there should be strong linkages between industries and educational institutions. In many countries, industries were part of the education process, he said adding that there is no ideology in educational thoughts.
Referring to debates about autonomy of universities, the KSHEC Vice-Chairman said that autonomy should be linked with responsibility.
Touching on the controversial issue of campus politics, he said that campus politics was acceptable if it would enable students to be future leaders of the country. However, politicisation of universities and colleges was a bane.
He also said that education in the country had benefited immensely from private educational institutions. He also said that ideology had to be set aside while debating participation of foreign universities in the country. Not a single Indian Institute of Technology had been included in the list of 200 best universities in the world, he said.
"We have to think hard how far our educational institutions can be built on external models," he asked,
Mr. Sreenivasan said that the KSHEC was mulling the idea of creating the State Assessment and Accreditation Council which would enable the council to pick and choose better institutions to be given incentives.
Economist Prabhat Patnaik in his keynote address at the seminar struck a different note saying that the purpose of education was to create organic intellectuals to serve the social order. If the purpose was to create students employable in the market, ordering of institutions was bound to be the outcome. The country did not want clones of foreign institution, he pointed out. Education in different societies could not be homogenous, he said adding that there was an effort to homogenise education to make deviant universities conform, he observed.
Admitting that there was remarkable deterioration of quality in higher education in the country despite increase in the number of educational institutions, Dr. Patnaik said that the concept of employability makes education a commodity. Stating that a university is a place for intellectual engagement, he said commoditisaton of education requires standardisation. Observing that this was now demanded by international mobile capital, he said that India was making a major departure by having institutions set up by capitalists. Privatisation of education produces commodities and not people who think, he pointed out. The objective of higher education must be to inculcate the values in our Constitution, he added.
Stating that the higher education in the country was facing serious crisis, Dr. Patnaik said that the crisis was associated with commoditisation of education which had become official policy. He also called for an urban employment guarantee programme that would ensure minimal income for the unemployed educated youth. He also questioned the tendency to debunk students and teachers from politics.

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