Campus should create congenial environment for learning

THE HISTORY of higher education tells us that during the middle ages there were two types of universities in Europe. The University of Bologna in Italy led the first kind. Here the university was to a large extent managed by the students. They paid the professors to teach them what they thought were the right subjects to learn! This university specialised in Law, as it happened to be the favourite subject with students of those days. At the University of Paris, on the other hand, the professors thought they knew best as to what the students should be taught!

To this day the state considers it a great privilege to have eminent teachers and scholars at this university and does not mind paying for their academic talent. Paris has been well known for subjects such as mathematics, logic and science (including medicine). The emphasis now is on good quality academic research, along with teaching students at graduate and post-graduate levels. A majority of the Nobel Prize winners have been associated with one university or the other!

This combination of research along with teaching introduces a breath of fresh air into the subjects being taught. It is the enthusiasm of young minds along with the supportive encouragement by teachers that creates a congenial environment for learning. For example, Crick and Watson at Cambridge made an important scientific discovery in 1953. They were both very young researchers and they suggested a helical shape for the DNA molecule at a time when senior scientists were baffled regarding its actual structure!

If a teacher can persuade his students to start searching for answers to his queries by looking up books and references in the library or by performing experiments in the laboratory, then he would have done a great job. The role of a university is to ensure that an atmosphere conducive to higher learning is nurtured on its campus.

A hundred and fifty years ago three new universities were established at Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. Here teaching remained the responsibility of the affiliated colleges, whereas, the universities confined themselves to prescribing the syllabus, conducting annual examinations and awarding degrees. Advanced academic research was conducted in just a few institutions across the country and that too on shoestring budgets. While Dr. Jagdish Chandra Bose did his pioneering researches on electro-magnetic waves in a tiny attic room at the Presidency College, Sir C. V. Raman conducted his Nobel Prize winning research in the field of Spectroscopy in a semi-private institution, also located in Calcutta. Most universities have now taken upon themselves the tasks of teaching postgraduate courses and conducting research on their university campuses.

It is a well-known fact that when an organisation grows, its administration becomes impersonal and soon degenerates into a bureaucratic system, full of rules and regulations to be followed by one and all. Some of these rules could be interpreted in many different ways and this often leads to intervention by law courts. Unfortunately, our educational system has slipped into such a pattern. It becomes difficult to make worthwhile modifications in a system where there exists a general inertia and reluctance to any change, whatsoever. The plans that the universities have for their growth are indeed admirable but then their financial resources are also limited.

Higher education has over the years, become massive public enterprises. Ours being a welfare state, the government has been investing on higher education since independence, as we had to make up for valuable years lost when we were under the colonial rule. Funding such a vast public venture is a heavy burden on the state exchequer. If our country is to play a significant role in the world affairs, then it must have a sufficiently large number of young people who have had the advantage of being properly educated at our universities. But then ours is a large country with a population that continues to gallop unbridled. Though the number of universities and colleges keep increasing by the year, so also does the number of young students aspiring to acquire degrees. Nothing ever appears to be enough!

The teaching staff has problems of its own. Teaching was at one time a highly honoured profession in our country. Teachers would like to work today in an environment that is conducive towards higher learning and where they are held in high esteem. They have a large number of grievances that need to be attended to. For this purpose it is important to have a built-in mechanism to mitigate their monetary and more importantly their scholastic and academic requirements.

The students these days are aware of new academic subjects gaining in importance and how these might affect their earning capacity subsequently. (Shades of the Bologna pattern!) Naturally, they would like to study useful subjects that would enable them to earn a livelihood no sooner they leave the university and enter the employment market. Since they want to do well in examinations, they have no hesitation in supplementing their formal studies by attending informal coaching classes which specialise in teaching specific subjects.

Such institutions emphasise during the course of their teaching, how to solve problems and answer questions. Consequently, their students do well at examinations. These classes are quite expensive and no doubt dig deeply into their family's financial resources! It is amazing how quickly such institutions have become popular in most of our cities. Since it is in their own interest, the students take their courses seriously and never skip classes. This only goes to show that something essential is lacking in our formal teaching institutions.

From amongst the teaching faculty there are some that can inspire their students to great heights by their sheer personality and style of teaching. The others can also be effective provided they use technology. Now the 20th Century has witnessed the emergence of many new technologies. These have helped us to improve the quality of our lives in general, but are of special interest to the teaching community as well. It may be mentioned that many new technologies were developed at universities in the first instance! Important among these are computers and communication systems. Today they dominate our lives and we just cannot do without them. These two subjects joined hands a decade ago to constitute the Information Technology or IT.

Computers have graduated from solving mathematical equations to managing data and information. This makes them indispensable to financiers and businessmen. The data in its binary form is stored in special memories inside the computer. Compact discs and Digital Versatile discs are currently the most popular medium for storing data and information. Text and pictures that would otherwise be found only in books are now converted into a digital format and then stored on compact discs.

Many public libraries and book publishers have taken the trouble of recording the contents of encyclopaedias, books, reports, documents etc. onto these new types of memories. One could safely say that the discs will be our new books and that our future libraries would consist of stacks of such discs! No library can possibly afford to possess each and every reference book, but since their contents are available on the Internet and CDs, every one has an equal opportunity to peruse them and make use of the information in his own work.

A teacher or professor who gives formal lectures to his students is always eager to ensure that the contents of his presentations are factually correct and presented in a manner that would kindle interest amongst the students. The blackboard and the overhead projector are the earlier known presentation techniques. However, more recently, personal computers (the laptop version in particular) can be programmed to produce presentation frames. These can be projected sequentially from a computer aided projection system for every one to see. Since much new information is continuously being added to the general pool of knowledge, the teacher can update the contents of each frame of his presentation and make them interesting with the help of diagrams, pictures or even tables and graphs. Thus, changes can also be included at the last moment just before a lecture.

Teachers abroad do not hesitate in making use of such presentation techniques to help them in their classroom and laboratory teaching programmes. These live demonstrations help students to visualise better the complex concepts being explained. These aids have become a part of the general classroom teaching techniques.

There is yet another useful technology that had its origin at the university level. What began as a simple inter-university experiment to quickly exchange research information (no sooner it was generated) over a special communication network (then known as Arpanet?) soon graduated to become a vast information network system spread across the entire world. This is the Internet. Even business and financial transactions are being conducted over this network. The advantage of the Internet to a student is that he is now able to access the best library in the world and obtain the required information by clicking away on his computer without even bothering to move out of his study room!

Research done at universities are published as papers in learned journals or as departmental reports. It takes weeks in reaching fellow students in other universities if sent by post. However, today all such information is available on the Internet. Exchange of knowledge over long distances has become quite rapid and this is all to the advantage of students, irrespective of whether he lives in a large or a small town!

In many universities it is customary for teachers to give weekly assignments to their students. As and when the report is ready the student posts it over the network and the teacher can have a look at it whenever he has a free moment. Similarly, the teacher forwards his comments over the same medium back to the student. These are some facilities our students would like to see in our teaching institutions.

The Open Universities have much to gain from the Internet. These universities are doing an admirable job in helping young and middle aged people who work during day but do not mind sparing a few hours in the evenings towards enhancing their knowledge base.

Many overseas Universities (including Australia, New Zealand and England) have been inserting advertisements in magazines and newspapers about the educational opportunities they are able to offer to our students. These universities advise our youngsters to spend a few years in their country and to round off their education by earning an appropriate degree or diploma from them.

After all, these universities do have something to offer but at a price! (Prospective candidates should be prudent enough to ensure that the degree or the diploma they might earn is valid and legitimate in our country!) Many such universities even send members of their staff to interview prospective candidates and brief them adequately regarding the courses they can offer. They also advise on what subjects our students might benefit from and provide information regarding the financial expenditure involved, visa requirements, accommodation, social problems, etc.

A comprehensive picture is presented to the students and they are assured that by joining their universities they would be preparing themselves for a fruitful career in some exotic new fields of employment. This is the sort of transparent sincerity on the part of the university, which is appreciated by students and parents alike. A similar concern for their students has yet to emerge from our university staff as well. There is a general feeling amongst our students that their teachers don't have much sympathy for them!

This is also an age of high competition. A tremendous pressure is put on our students to `perform'. Consequently, what our young students would like to acquire are educational skills (whether it be in using their brains or hands) to help them along in life. Apart from their main subjects of study, they would like to master aspects which would enable them compete in the employment market. These include good `communication' skills so that they can impress anyone with their professional capabilities. `Problem solving' ability is another skill they would like to acquire while at the university. Our students are quite ambitious and high up in their list of priorities is to seek working assignments abroad. Alternatively, they would like to become entrepreneurs in business or industry or perhaps even to start a `dot com' company of their own! It is against this background that our universities have to educate our youngsters, so that, they can confidently meet the challenges of the coming decades!

K. D. PAVATE

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Combating insurgency
Next     : Know your English