 |
|
| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
|
Beating students won’t do
PTU suffers from
staff shortage
|
|
|
Beating students won’t do
Of course, cases like the most recent one—death of Shanno Khan in a municipal school at New Delhi allegedly due to corporal punishment—are exceptions. Similar instances where teachers have been abominably cruel may, too, be aberrations. All said and done, teachers who use rods fitted with nails for a sound thrashing or stash away a small child in a cupboard or drag a five-year-old with a rope for pardonable misdemeanours—if not outright frivolous reasons—can’t possibly be dubbed human, let alone be called teachers. However, such teachers may be the proverbial black sheep, corporal punishment remains a norm. The reality is that in India, two out of three schoolchildren are physically abused, according to the National Report on child abuse by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, in 2007. Harleen Kohli, director, CEVA, an organisation that aims to make student life easier and more joyful, is not surprised by the statistical revelation. She states, “With an abysmal teacher-taught ratio, our classrooms are virtually like pressure cookers ready to blow off any moment.” Atul Khanna, director, Strawberry Fields World School, recalls his student days when canning was a regular ritual. Realising the damaging impact of such acts on a child’s psyche, now as an educator, he insists upon zero tolerance to any form of punishment. Komal Anand, headmistress, junior school, YPS, SAS Nagar, deems that corporal punishment is on the decline, especially in public schools. The dismal truth, however, is that schools have not been completely successful in banishing the fearful practice. A slap here or there, sarcasm-laden remarks, ridicule and scorn are routinely considered justified disciplining tools. Santosh Bhandari, Principal, DAV School, Sector 8, Panchkula, agrees that despite laws and CBSE’s direct intervention and interest to banish corporal punishment, it is not so easy to change teachers’ mindset. So, it has taken her three long years to get rid of the bane of corporal punishment in her school, which under the aegis of “Jagriti” also deals with underprivileged students. Kanwarjeet Singh Bindra who has put his two children in Coveda, a school that advocates alternative methods of teaching, remarks, “Corporal punishment finds sustenance in an assumption that children will not learn on their own and need to be whipped or punished to enhance learning”. He says children learn the most difficult tasks in their first three years of life without force or pressure. Of course, he opines that child may choose to learn a skill that may not find favour with parents, society or schools. Hence, the rod comes in handy to make the students toe the conventional and conformist path. In short, as in the case of unfortunate Shanno, students are being pressurised to learn. Never mind, studies have time and again reiterated that corporal punishment is counterproductive, has a direct link with underachievement and could also lead to deviant behaviour. In Key’s words, “Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one.” Certainly, no one is disputing the need to discipline children in an environment where, as Anand puts it, “More and more children lack respect for teachers”. Argues Dr Urmilla Sharma, principal, Doaba College of Education, “Today, there are hundreds of ways to manage children and make them understand the reason. Corporal punishment is a primitive outdated concept. One can be firm without being abusive”. But is it a good idea to make corporal punishment a legal offence? As of now, corporal punishment offenders get away for the Indian Penal Code Section 89 protects an act, which is not intended to cause death, done in good faith for a person’s benefit. While Khanna is a little circumspect, Bhandari sees no harm in it, “The fact that the idea is being considered implies that the existing methods to deal with it have failed. Indeed, the proposed move can act as a deterrent”. But Kohli doesn’t think punitive action against teachers already bogged down by the exam and result-oriented education system is a good idea. No she is not indicting the education system per se. She reasons, “Why blame the education system alone? As a society, we, including parents, endorse violence as a tool and often use it to punish the powerless. Till we learn to reject violence as a way of solving problems, the punitive culture will not only perpetuate but also inherited by our future generations who in small ways have already begun to endorse it.” Thus, corporal punishment is not simply a teacher-taught issue but a concern that society as a whole with parents as most “significant others” need to delve into.
|
|
|
PTU suffers from
staff shortage
ELEVEN regular staff members and 250 contractual employees have been managing the affair of 220 regular colleges and 1,005 distance education centres, conducting examination of 2.5 lakh students, setting up 6,000 different types of question papers and checking 30 lakh answer sheets each year. It may sound unbelievable, but it is a reality in Punjab Technical University.
With the kind of set up, one or two odd blunders in conduct of examination, paper leak, result compilation and result delay committed in each semester are considered very normal. The blame for the mess-up does not go on the staff but the sorry state of affairs in which the university is being run. After all, no one can expect much from over-burdened yet under-paid employees. Leave aside the staff crunch, the infrastructure facilities are also too inadequate. While shortage of staff should have been compensated by automation, this way out too has not been followed. There are hardly any tailor-made softwares or student lifecycle programmes that can help in generating the entire data of the student right from the time of his taking admission to his passing out. The mushrooming of colleges has become another major headache. The university is likely to get a new chunk of 20 new engineering and 50 management colleges this year. This will add to an existing glut of 65 engineering, 33 pharmacy and 74 management colleges. On these lines, the colleges are likely to fall short of hundreds of seats as the number of students has not been increasing as much as the number of seats. Even if all 26,000 applicants of CET this year come for getting a seat in engineering and pharmacy colleges (the rate is usually 55 per cent), there still will many colleges left with some vacant seats. There currently are 23,406 seats and the number is expected to go up by 3,500. This has made the colleges too desperate with many issuing advertisements for filling up management quota seats well in advance, others even offering first year fee waiver to the students and still others sending their staff to other states and offshore to bring in students. Due to excessive number of seats, hundreds of below average students too will find a place, leading to the lowering of pass percentage of the university and adding to a list of ever-increasing re-appear candidates. A university official from the examination section revealed that the average pass percentage was just 35 per cent. In the B.Tech first semester mathematics paper, it is less than 20 per cent, he disclosed. The mushrooming of colleges has further added to the complexity of problems. The number of students will increase but there has been no corresponding increase in staff strength in PTU. This can further vitiate the atmosphere, leading to chances of occurrence of more errors in conduct of examination, a principal of an affiliated college pointed out. Even the regular monitoring has become a remote possibility as managing of affairs within is also a Herculean task. While ideally, the university team should go for staff recruitment in any college and approve the appointment of teachers after receiving all documents, which is not being done. The staff in most new colleges is underpaid with many getting a paltry sum of Rs 5,000, said one of the PTU insiders. PTU vice-chancellor Rajneesh Arora said he was planning to make concerted efforts to improve the system. He, however did not discuss any details: “I cannot talk about any point now. Let the election code be lifted,” he said.
|
|
|
Campus Notes
The Department of English and Foreign Languages will organise the first international conference on “Shakespeare as Critic in his Time and Ours: Literary, Social and Political” from October 8 to10, this year. The conference will be organised wht the help of the Shakespeare Association.
According to the head, Department of English and Foreign Languages, MDU, and convener of the proposed conference, eminent scholars from various places are expected to delve on the various aspects of literary works of Shakespeare. The authorities concerned have set up a committee comprising Prof S.S. Sangwan, Dr Jaibir Hooda, Dr Manjeet Rathee (MDU, Rohtak), Prof Anu Shukla, Pankaj Sharma, Dr Manjeet (CDLU, Sirsa), Dr Brijesh Sawhney (Kurukshetra University), Dr Gulab Singh (BPSM University, Khanpur Kalan) and Somvir of Government PG College, Bhiwani, for the purpose of holding this event. While the Vice-Chancellor will be the patron, Dr Bhim Singh Dahiya and Prof Asha Kadyan have been appointed as the president and the organising secretary of this conference. Participants of the meet have been asked to submit the abstracts of the research papers to be presented during this conference. Quality assurance cell set up
The university has re-constituted the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC). This cell has been established for the regular monitoring of university activities as per guidelines of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. While Vice-Chancellor R.P. Hooda will be the chairperson of the cell, other members include the registrar, controller of examinations, finance officer, dean, college development council, director, directorate of distance education, Prof K.S. Sangwan, dean, faculty of social sciences, Prof Nathi Singh, dean, faculty of physical sciences, Prof Arun Nanda, dean, faculty of pharmaceutical science), Prof R. Vinayek (Commerce dept), Dr Raj Kumar (IMSAR), Prof Baldev Singh (Kurukshetra University) and Rajesh Jain (MD, LPS Pvt. Ltd., Rohtak). Prof Surinder Kumar, dean, academic affairs, will be the member coordinator of the cell. Grant for new Chair
The university court has approved the budget estimate of Rs 15 lakh for the newly established Ch. Ranbir Singh Chair in the university. It also gave its approval to the budget estimates of the university for the first quarter of 2009-2010. This decision was taken in a meeting held here recently. The meeting was convened in connection with the approval of the 30th annual report and the annual audit report of the university under the chairmanship of the Vice-Chancellor. The court also approved the budget estimates of the Institute of Law and Management Studies, Gurgaon, for the financial year 2009-2010. Meanwhile, Dr Anita Singh of T.R. Girls College has been elected as member of the Executive Council of the university. Her membership term will be up to February 26, 2010. — Contributed by Bijendra Ahlawat
|
|
Armed ForcesIndian
Navy, PO Bag No 02, Sarojini Nagar, New Delhi 110023
|
Apparently, the Indian teaching community too has a similar purpose. Only in an ambitious and overzealous bid to “secure” the future of the student community, they invariably and merrily employ corporal punishment, thus jeopardising not only the present but also the future of their students.