The three teaching levels

AT a time when we need to make our education system more competitive, competent, productive and merit-oriented it is getting bogged down in teacher discontent. The situation is such that enough competent and talented people are not joining the profession of teaching at the universities anymore. Much of the blame for this sad state of affairs lies with the unthinking and selfish policies pursued by previous governments.

Only a completely challenged government would begin to believe that the work done in the universities and colleges is the same. However, under the leadership of Prof Nurul Hasan and Indira Gandhi the then government, in 1973, removed the crucial distinctions between the roles of university and college teachers.

As everyone knows, the main function of university teachers is to contribute to the growth of knowledge and to critically examine received theories and ideas, to provide a fresh and proper perspective to increase our understanding of nature, society and human life.

It is for this reason that an integral part of the normal duties of a university teacher is to engage in and guide research. That is why before 1973 university teachers were provided a higher salary than college teachers. University lecturers were in the pay scale of Rs 400-950 whereas college lecturers’ pay scale was Rs 300-600. However, the then government in its unthinking and irresponsible manner merged the two scales into one of Rs 700-1600 in 1973. Such irrational clubbing of pay scales of university and college teachers made people confuse the two and dissolve the distinction between their functions. This only further deepened the crisis of the university system.

Subsequently, showing its gross incompetence and ignorance about managing the institutions of higher education, the various governments brought in a number of ad hoc and inadequate solutions like making the mere acquisition of a Ph. D degree the summum bonum of an academic career in the university. The dross continues.

Now the time has come to make a radical break with our unfortunate past to save the university system from an imminent collapse. The distinction between the college level of work and that of the university level needs to be restored as it was the case before 1973. We need to abhor woolly-minded thinking which presumes that the transmission of received knowledge (as is primarily the case with college-level teaching) is of same value as the creation of new knowledge which is the primary task of a university). After all, it is the research being done at the university level and the students who are being trained to become masters of their discipline at the universities which form the backbone of our system of learning. If new researchers were not to do their work properly, or if no new research were to be done, we would not have anything to teach at the schools and colleges anymore.

It may be pointed out that there is widespread recognition that there are three separate levels of formal education and learning. At the first level is school teaching where the teacher guides the student to feed at the table of knowledge, provides him or her with the first introduction to the world of learning. At the second level is bachelor grade teaching — college teaching – where the teacher, through a series of tutorials and intensive lectures, deepens the knowledge of the student about the subject matter. This knowledge is further deepened at the postgraduate level where the student is required to look, briefly, into the latest literature available on the subject of study.

At the third level is the education at the university level which involves, substantially, original research as also postgraduate learning of a far higher order than is possible at the level of a normal college. At this level the teacher introduces the students to various mechanisms through which knowledge and learning per se are generated, new research is done, earlier one is critically examined and modified. It is this level at which even though the teacher may be interacting on a face-to-face basis with far femenstudents that the basis of all our teaching exists. Because it is on the basis of knowledge generated at this level that the quality and depth of learning and teaching at all other levels is determined. If the original research being done at our universities is of shoddy nature, the teaching at lower levels will inevitably follow suit. The vice versa is not necessarily true.

MEETA RAJIVLOCHAN
CEO, Zila Parishad
Jalgaon (Maharashtra)

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Kashmir: the latest phase

Pakistan threatens the nations of the world that Kashmir must go to it, or else there will be bloody war, a nuclear war. Pakistan has, in fact, an intense obsession for Kashmir as reflected during the failed talks between the two neighbours.

Pakistan fought three wars to grab Kashmir (1947, 1962 and 1971). Result? Ignominous defeat. The present one is a proxy war through terrorism. But this decade-old proxy war too seems to be petering out.

Kashmir is a case of naked foreign aggression, not internal revolt as Pakistan would like the world to believe. Today it is being fought by regular Pakistan troops (in mufti) and foreign mercenaries — plus a handful of extras. Kashmiris’ little initial sympathy evaporated with time. Now they sigh for peace, settled conditions, return of tourists on a global scale and economic activity of the good old days.

In this operation, 40,000 Kashmiris have been killed.

There is no justification for the argument that since Kashmir is a Muslim majority area it should go to Pakistan. Pakistan conveniently forgets that against 40 lakh Muslims in Kashmir, there are over 15 crore Muslims in the rest of India. Therefore, Kashmir must remain with India.

P. D. SHASTRI
Chandigarh

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Salary of college principals

The Haryana Non-Government College Principals’ Association feels obliged to the Ministry of Human Resources Development for having announced the release of the new pay-scales and enhancing the age of retirement to 62 years for principals and college teachers with effect from 1.1.96. The principals of degree and postgraduate colleges deserve a pay-scale on a par with that given to a senior professor at the university level.

They were also promised a pocket allowance of Rs 1000 p.m. about which the H.R.D. Ministry has made no mention. Needless to say, the college principals work round the clock and deserve the pocket allowance, obviously with effect from 1.1.96.

S. CHAUDHARY
President, Haryana Non-Govt College Principals’ Association
Pehowa

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Tentacles of corruption

In order to root out corruption, Mr Tara Chand’s suggestion in his letter (Nov 6) “to nationalise the gilded evil” is indeed very novel and interesting. This reminds me of the following couplet of Mirza Ghalib:

Ranj se khogar hoya insan to mit jata hai ranj,

Mushkilein mujh par parin itni ke aasan ho gayin

However, the couplet, “Mareez-e-ishq pe rehmat khuda ki/Marz barhta gaya jun jun dawa ki”, quoted by him sounds incorrect. The original one reads:

Mureez-e-ishq par rehmat khuda ki,

Marz barhta gaya jun jun dawa ki.

The readers of your widely circulated paper may be further interested in knowing that this famous couplet was composed by great Urdu poet Hakim Momin Khan “Momin”.

HARJIT FANI
Kapurthala