Monday, July 27, 2009

Higher Education and Yashpal Committee Report: Contradictions and Paradoxes (25 July, 2009)































Philosophical Society: A Students Discussion Forum of the Dev Samaj College for Women, Ferozepur, organized a seminar on the theme “Higher Education and Yashpal Committee Report: Contradictions and Paradoxes”.
In the Seminar, chaired by, college principal, Dr. Madhu Prashar, Navdeep, Amarjeet, Rajbeer of B.A. III Year and Rupinder Kaur of B.A. II Year Expressed their views with over 300 students and other faculty members of the campus.

Highlighting the aim of Higher Education Navdeep and Amarjeet said that Higher education promote and improve high quality, relevant basic education. It is to address the social, environmental and economic knowledge, skills and values inherent to sustainability in a holistic and inter-disciplinary manner In addition it assists in advancing learning and research, serving local and regional communities, as well as national interests at home and abroad. They said that higher education shares a great responsibility in the development of society, nation and the world.
Amarjeet while expressing her concern towards the ‘cubication ‘of Knowledge said that “today, a subject is taught in the parameters of its subject matter. There is very less interdisciplinary approach, with which students are largely taught in the colleges and universities. A student of mathematics takes less interest in philosophy and a student of History is taught in isolation of chemistry.” She stressed on to make teaching more interdisciplinary.
Rupinder affirmed Yashpal’s, worry that the graduate and undergraduate programmes in India are too ‘theoretical’, devoid of ‘practicle’ experience and demanded that new curriculums be designed to cater the future need of the students.
Rajbeer in her presentation said that the tendency to treat teaching and research as separate activities by universities should be abandoned. She demanded that more research oriented programmes be introduced at the undergraduate level. While raising her concern towards the future of higher education in the country, she said that, “there are no new vacancies coming up in colleges and there is a great hype towards privatization of higher education. The state seems to have shed the responsibility towards promoting higher education and providing more grants to sustain quality teaching at the undergraduate level. She demanded more educational financial support from state and centre to cater the budding demand for higher education.
Principal Dr. Madhu Prashar appreciating the effort of Prof. Yashpal in bringing macro and micro problems of higher education to surface lauded the solutions and suggestions given by him. She supported the views of Yashpal to construct more inter-linkages between university and colleges. She stressed that provisions for university faculty to teach in colleges should be given a priority. She was however reluctant to merge U.G.C. with N.C.H.E.R as she thinks that setting up new institutions will not be enough. She said that U.G.C. is actively working very well to strengthen higher education.
Ambuj Sharma of the Department of Philosophy elaborated on the right to education. He said that right to education to all be respected. He raised his dissatisfaction towards the on going Examination system adopted by the university. While supporting Yashpal’s view in assessment of the students, He said that, “An annual examination system cannot enhance the creativity and potentiality of students. There should be amendments in the examination system and more field works, research works and social responsibilities in the form projects should be included to assess the students.
Anirudh Gupta CEO DCM Group of Schools gave a special presentation on the above said issue.
In the last session many significant questions were asked by Karamjeet, Sakshi, and many other students of the campus.