Thursday, April 3, 2014

Treasures of learning

, The Island

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By MOHIT CHAKRABARTI

Quality in teaching and learning is the benchmark of progress in higher education. Research, team work, reflective thinking and erudition are the primary hallmarks of excellence. The different stakeholders in education need to be encouraged to participate in activities that are geared to enhance quality. We still have a long way to go in terms of value-based education

The quality of higher education seems to be abstract and vague. There are five parameters of quality ~ a) it demands discipline; b) a critical approach that makes the system transparent and fool-proof; c) it presupposes a regular and diversified quest for quality; d) it must translate to substantial progress; and e) it must accord priority to excellence.

Quality in teaching and learning is the benchmark of progress in higher education. Research, team work, reflective thinking and erudition are the primary hallmarks of excellence. The different stakeholders in education need to be encouraged to participate in activities that are geared to enhance quality.

We still have a long way to go in terms of value-based education. Such values as truth, simplicity, humility, goodness, beauty, magnanimity and catholicity of vision are yet to be translated into vibrant reality in our quest for quality. The fact of the matter is that values cannot be taught. Either their are imbibed or they aren’t.

Higher education calls for a fresh approach to quality enrichment through the cultivation of creative and aesthetic consciousness. Let a new sense of the culture of aesthetic values be cultivated with devotion and dedication. Let the altar of teaching-learning be a hallowed institution that upholds the finer senses and sensibilities by exercising the aesthetic joy and marvels in the education of love. Let the quality of higher education be guaranteed with the pursuit and advancement of the education of having, loving and being.

Management and supervision play a major role in the teaching-learning process. The other vital parameters are promotion of research and higher studies, publications and participation in value-added academic and administrative activities; maintenance of discipline and punctuality, planning and organising an eco-friendly climate.

Higher education for promotion of governance and leadership is often unduly overpowering or utterly misunderstood. There ought to be a spirit of quality and excellence in the exercise of self-governance, self-activity, self-dependence, self-leadership and self-consciousness. Moreover, a harmonious blend of governance and leadership with the existing situation also enhances a favourable and distinctive climate of education.

Quality cannot be assured in a vacuum. Most of our institutes of higher education suffer from poor infrastructure and learning resources. The result is unfortunate when not disastrous. Our half-baked and drab inputs only reinforce the sense of hopelessness. It is a situation in which knowledge doesn’t enrich wisdom; nor for that matter does it lead to advancement of learning. As a result, today’s higher education often encourages cheating in parallel with learning.

To ensure a holistic awareness, the stakeholders should comprise parents/guardians, ex-students and other members of society. A new relationship between the institutes of higher education and society can lead to harmony of human relationship which is the key to quality enrichment in education. Already, societal needs and priorities in tune with excellence are geared to handle the constraints. This is all too apparent in India where there is a definite perspective of quality education. The other issue is the development of study materials. The centres of higher education play a very significant role in framing the network of evaluation and progress.

Indeed, every society looks forward to the role of institutes of higher education that care more for quality and excellence than act as mere agents for doling out degrees, diplomas, certificates, credentials and so on. To quote Professor Evan D Illich: "The purpose of public education should be no less fundamental than the purpose of the Church, although the purpose of the latter is more explicit. The basic purpose of public education should be to create a situation in which society obliges each individual to take stock of himself and his poverty. Education implies a growth of the independent sense of life and a relatedness which goes hand in hand with increased access to memories stored in the human community. The educational institution provides the focus for this process. This presupposes a place within society in which each of us is awakened by surprise; a place of encounter in which others surprise me with their liberty and make me aware of my own. The university itself, if it is to be worthy of its traditions, must be an institution whose purposes are identified with the exercise of liberty, whose autonomy is based on public confidence in the use of that liberty". (Celebration of Awareness, Penguin, 1970, pp. 113-114.)

Education must win over alienation and disappointments, ambiguities and irrelevance. As the Delors Commission suggests: "At a time when the sheer quantity of knowledge and information is expanding exponentially and when higher education institutions are confidently expected to be able to meet the learning needs of a constantly growing and increasingly varied student populace, the quality of training for teachers and the quality of teaching in higher education institutions assume an ever-greater importance. Higher education institutions have a key responsibility in training teachers, in establishing links with non-higher education teacher-training institutions and in training teacher educators. They must open themselves up to bring in teachers from the economic and other social sectors to facilitate interchange between them and the education sector". (Learning: The Treasure Within, UNESCO, 1996, p. 132). Nevertheless, the canvas of quality enrichment cannot but address the socio-cultural pros and cons in bringing about a radical and illuminating change in higher education.

Regretfully, our stereotyped and mechanical world of publications and research in higher education have failed to justify the call for a reawakened world of exposing new and more thrilling avenues in the quest for transparency. The mind hardly enjoys the freedom to think, criticise and create innovations that are meaningful, purposeful, practical and user-friendly.

To enrich quality in higher education, let us join the prayer and utter the ever so inspiring words of Rabindranath Tagore ~ "This is my prayer to thee, my lord / strike, strike at the root of penury in my head / give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows / give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service / give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might. Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles and give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love. (Gitanjali, XXXVL). (The Statesman/ANN)

The writer is former Professor of Education, Visva-Bharati University