Dissenters & Indian Education in a Changing World

As I and a professor colleague of mine started walking from the Campus-13 (parking lot) to the Krishna Campus (School of Management) of KIIT University, I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the delegates to the 58^th ASISC Conference parking their vehicles in Campus-13. The theme of the conference “Education in a Changing World” seemed to be guiding some of them to show their respect for the host university’s "vehicle free campus policy".  Yes…the world is changing and respect for the environment (and also the education ecosystem) starts from the schools. Students learn more effectively if they see their teachers and other important stakeholders of their schools sincerely “walking the talk”.  Many were found getting off their vehicles at the alighting points near the information center. It would have been even nicer if each person attending the conference, irrespective of caste, class or creed, had made an attempt to walk the last mile to the convention center.  As rightly articulated by some council members (in their conference brochure) democratization of education (i.e., if I may say, “holistic education” for life-long learning) is a universal right and it should be the endeavor of our education system to provide quality education.

Yet if we pause to think of the challenges facing us in this “changing world”, we need to reflect on Albert Einstein's famous quotes (also quoted earlier in this blog):  “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Einstein had also said:  "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.".

Here is a pointer to the kind of thinking that was prevailing earlier that has resulted in the problems confronting education (in India) right now. Here is one excerpt from today’s express article titled “Dissenters Call for India’s New Historiography” [TNIE, Wed, 18 Nov 2015]:

[Quote] 
Alleging the protesting intellectuals as beneficiaries and products of what it termed the politico-ideological apparatus dominating institutions, including the ICHR since 1970, the group blamed the “new School, which may be called ‘Leftist’ for want of a better term”, of becoming synonymous with abusive and unscholarly practices.

They accused this school of employing a reductionist approach while viewing the society through the prism of caste to focus on exclusion while neglecting integration, and ignoring India’s knowledge systems in every field — philosophical, linguistic, literary, scientific, medical, technological or artistic. It denied the continuity and originality of Hindu-Buddhist-Jain-Sikh culture, and refused to acknowledge the brutality of...........rulers and the intolerance of the..........in Goa, Kerala and Puducherry, the statement said.

Those academicians who dissented suffered discrimination in institutions......alleged the signatories.
[Unquote]
[See: Full text of statement issued by 46 academics against "leftist" historians]

In line with these observations regarding the reductionist approach leading ultimately to discrimination, it is not surprising therefore when we see concerted efforts still being made to safeguard "autonomy" of the so called “autonomous schools”.  Some such autonomous B-Schools (offering PGDM programs) that used to enjoy the largesse (in yesteryears) perhaps do not want to see the “Changing World” when it comes to Education in India. [See their worries here: Will MBA Bill disrupt equilibrium of management education system in India?]. Instead of worrying about the disruption in equilibrium, it would do greater good to the students and stakeholders if some of these schools tried to upgrade theur status to that of a university. It may be noted that some of those leading this association do have long years of experience in providing quality education (even if it was in the form of diploma granting institutes). 

Look at the impact the reductionist approach has already made in Indian education: “Silos…silos everywhere but not a grain to eat.”  The “grain” in the world of education is “knowledge” that various entities in our education system hesitate to share. They are unable to create healthy collaborative networks for the all round development of the region where they are located.  Unless our education system moves towards the synthesis of knowledge, we may not be able to provide the quality education so badly needed in India.

Relate Posts:
[You & Your Research] Why do we do research?
[Design Thinking @IIM-A] The story of Ants.......with lessons for managers & HR

These are my independent views as a blogger from Odisha

[You & Your Research] Why do we do research?

Today's interesting article in Indian Express titled "Are Research Institutes World-class or Worthless?" (click here) by Manu Rajan (TNIE, Fri, 6 Nov 2015). The author is an information scientist with Archives and Publications Cell of IISc, Bangalore. E-mail: manu.rajan134@gmail.com

This article reminded me of last year.  It was Friday, Sep 19, 2014 when I got this opportunity to share one motivating attachment titled "You and Your Research" sent by my esteemed senior colleague Professor Bagchi. [Source: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html]. This lecture by Richard Hamming was delivered to researchers (i.e., potential Nobel Laureates) who also teach.

Having said that, this post is meant for the hard-working teachers who also do research - i.e., mostly in India). I once made my observations in response to one Nobel Laureate's articulations in KIIT [see this post dated 30 Nov 2007:There is no such thing as a free lunch ].

I pose one basic question to my community (which we might have visited several times): Why do we do research? Now if the KIIT community and stakeholders develop a shared understanding around this question, then we will be doing a lot in terms of fixing our collective purpose for [also] doing research (i.e., with regard to its potential for impact on the Indian society - which may not necessarily be with regard to its impact on research citations). 

Mr. Manu Rajan, in his article, has answered several aspects of the above question. Here are few excerpts:

Few excerpts:

[Quote]
Unfortunately, as things stand today, the environment at our premier research institutes is not conducive to knowledge-sharing even among people within the same department! This is because research productivity in these institutes is usually measured by the number of journal papers produced, and the race to maximise the number of publications has given rise to a culture of individualism, secrecy and mistrust. A single-point focus on a number of papers may well result in a marginal increase in the stock of scientific knowledge, but few bold insights can be expected to emerge from such an arrangement.

Innovative knowledge generation in a society like India’s can only occur in an environment where a multiplicity of knowledge forms are encouraged to commingle and play with one another. This implies not only greater traffic of ideas between the sciences and the arts, humanities, social sciences, and policy-making but also calls for interchange and cross-fertilisation between formal and institutionally produced knowledge and the manifold forms of informal and tacit knowledge that lie embedded in the everyday practices of our communities.

Instead of hankering after global rankings based on dubious measures, perhaps, we should take a leaf from Youyou’s book and try to foster a more equitable exchange between specialised scientific expertise and the infinite forms of tacit locally embedded knowledge that we already possess.

[Unquote]

Read on....There is more in the full article.