Post independent India has seen many teaching schemes to handle the problems of higher education. Fact remains that the suggested solutions to our educational problems remained keyed to concepts foreign to our nation and problems remain unsolved.
To understand the status and the scenario of higher education, let us begin with certain basic questions: What is the purpose of higher education? Is it an employment guarantor? Are we to turn out slaves from the portals of our big educational institutions? Or are we here to transform the students into self-respecting citizens with enegry to make our nation great.
Purpose of education
Ultimate aim of higher education must be to awaken the VIVEKA of students for their transformation into most efficient jiva on earth. At a lower level it can be regarded as one which is meant to shape their minds to make them responsible and patriotic citizens and responsible family members. According to popular belief higher education is meant to endow one with the capabilities to capture suitable position in the employment market. This belief is corroborated by the multitude of echoes which emanate from the higher portals of administration. Obvious outcome of this attitude has been the unprecedented increase in popular aspirations from education. To meet the demands, educational institutions are being opened at a very high rate. Tremendous increase in students intake should have solved all the problems of the nation. But the result of this growth of institutions is contrary to all expectations. Even the grossest form of aspirations are not being satisfied and there is an ever growing dissatisfaction with the education. Is it a management problem ?
Management
Management of the present day educational institutions is being handled by all types of education bodies as per the best perspectives available to them. Since the output is dependent upon the perception, therefore, diverse forms are before the nation. With the passage of time it is becoming more and more clear that something basic is lacking in our approach towards the educational affairs. In order to understand this, let us question ourselves: Are we shaping/helping shape the student inputs as per the purpose and national demands? Why is it that our academies of higher education have not been able to achieve this task efficiently ?
Scenario
It is a naked fact that the establishment and operation of the present day educational institutions require enormous sums of money. In such a situation it is quite likely that the spirit of education is substituted by economic considerations. Whenever this happens, alI tools to promote the interests are used, including the students.
Students are unnecessarily loaded with tasks quite unconnected with their education. This process has been allowed to continue for quite a long time and the students are gradually turninginto persons with self-centered activities. Politicians add fuel to the fire. They use these young minds to further their political interests. We have, to-day, reached a state where the educational institutions have become dumps of dry gun-powder awaiting a small spark to explode it. This explosion, if allowed to occur, can shatter the very fabric of the nation. Shall we allow the explosion to occur? OR shall we recognize the great potential available on the campuses ready to be used for national reconstruction and national awakening ?
Special tasks for centres of higher education
Centres of higher education in our country, being at the apex of the educational system, are required to provide the educational system with its leadership. These ce:ntres are also expected to act as guardians of truth seekers of new truth, upsetters of old worn out dogmas, conservators of society’s heritage, moulders of its youth and the path finders of its future. For this, the centres of higher education require a special status of autonomy. A certain kind of autonomy is made available to these institutions through acts of parliament and legislatures. Teachers and institutions defend the autonomy as a privilege and an end in itself. Though there is a big number of teachers engaged in pure and simple individual pursuits of learning yet the overall situation bears a look of crisis.
Crisis in education
Model of education adopted in our country is a heterogeneous amalgam of different models. Paramount importance is given to the objectives of numbers and financial inputs with scant regard to the achievements of teachers. There is no compulsion for teachers to work for the fulfillment of objectives of education. Jobs and accountability have been totally delinked. These institutions of higher learning are naturally in a state of crisis. This crisis is less graphic than the other crises which are being faced, viz. political crisis, administrative crisis, environmental crisis. We must remember that the educational crisis is least graphic but most damaging.
The educational crisis also evolves from the changing global scenario with reference to the following:
1. Change( Fantastic changes in the thinking of mankind have been brought about by con-current revolutions, viz. science and technology; economics and politics; demography and social sciences).
2. Adaptation( It is not possible to have the same rate of adaptation as that of the changing scenario of events all around. As a matter of fact the adaptation rate is very slow).
3. Disparity (This lagging behind is the cause of growing disparity between educational system and its environment. Our educational institutions try to gear up to cope with the changes in science and technology).
4. Failure (Disparity leads to discontent which in turn generates protests. These protests assume different tones dependent on the type of leadership available at a particular location).
Overcoming crisis
To provide a solution to overcome the prevailing educational crisis, we must receive help from every sector of life; more money; real resources that money buys and what money alone cannot buy( e.g. ideas and courage; determination; will for self- appraisal; will for adventure, and change)
Attempts to use systems concept which has been employed successfully to handle economic and industrial problems, have not proved their worth. The reason lies in the fact that their usefulness is limited to material related areas alone. Educational systems are created for the shaping of living beings, The shapers are living beings (teachers) and the products to be shaped are also living beings. A distinct nature of this system is that no two shapers are alike and no two products to be shaped are alike. Moreover, the shapers and the products are aware of their environments for all times during which the shaping process is carried out. Hence no marketable theory of nonliving systems is applicable to this living system. Thus it is obvious that the education system is a class by itself. Such systems are living and self-aware.
A self-aware education system will have the attributes: 1. It possesses the courage to “know itself”. 2. It is objective in judging its own performance. 3. It ceaselessly examines the living testimony offered by its former students and then corrects itself before the errors harden into diehard habits. Teachers (the prime creators of knowledge and its conveyors) must ceaselessly update their knowledge and then regularly transmit it to students.
Creation & operation of self-aware system
Since the education system is living and self-aware therefore, it is necessary to have adequate provisions for making it self- regulatory. For this purpose, it is necessary for the Government to take a very bold step to change the present set up of higher education and substitute it by one in which the teachers, the creators and conveyors of knowledge, play the central role. A scheme of national educational structure, will have to be evolved. Teachers must be subject to regular assessments through academic lectures on their achievements in their campuses. The minutes of these deliveries must be made public for general assessment. The authority of the teacher must be restored and simultaneously they must be held completely responsible for any type of happenings on the campuses to which they belong.
Apparatus of the self-aware teacher
The suggested reforms in the educational system can work only when a suitable apparatus is available with the teachers. This apparatus is the inner mind( or Antahkaran) of the teacher. It has got to be developed to make it fit to accept the challenges of the rapidly changing scenario, tune themselves to the new dimensions and then transmit the light to the students.
This apparatus of the teacher manifests itself at the following four levels: Chitta, manas, buddhi and viveka.
Chitta is the place where alI the mental samskaras are stored. Active memory selects items from the store house of samskaras. It is the duty of the teacher to impart training to the mind so that this part is improved. Manas is considered to be the sixth jyanendriya. It is the function of the manas to collect the image obtained from alI the five jyanendrayias and then to translate it (the image) into a thought. Buddhi is the apparatus of thought. It regulates and organizes knowledge. Viveka enables one to obtain the inner vision of the truth.
A teacher must acquire a thorough knowledge of the methodology of the working of the mind through its four stages. Equipped so, a teacher will have the power to transmit his thoughts to the students. He will become the creator of changes. A live process of this kind, will impart life to the seeker.
Once educated awareness is bestowed on the student, then he becomes aware of his environment which in turn enables him to achieve his ultimate objective.
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