Shillong: ‘Education in India should have a multicultural curriculum. At present the curriculum is very North-Indian centric and this can be gauged from the fact that the history of India’s independence is all about Gandhi and Nehru and leaves out Subhas Chandra Bose or Bal Gangadhar Tilak etc.,’ stated Prof Marmar Mukhopadhyay at a talk organised by Asian Confluence and Women’s college on Wednesday.
Prof Marmar is India’s noted educationist and currently Director of Educational Technology and Management Academy, Gurgaon. He was formerly the Director of NIEPA and Chairman of National Open School; Vice President of ICDE, (Oslo); and Member of the Steering Committee of International Multi-channel Action Group on Education (Washington DC), amongst other important responsibilities.
Prof Mukhopadhyay was speaking on the theme, “Education in the context of an emerging South East Asian Confluence.” Referring to the IITs and IIMs, he said these are good for undergraduate programmes but suffer from research vacuum at the higher educational level. Moreover there is a 40% staff deficiency in these institutions, he said.
Pointing to the research scenario in India, he said India lacks the ambience and eco-system and also the facilities for path breaking research hence all Nobel Prize winners from India have had to go abroad to come up with research that merited them the Nobel Prize.
Stating that India has completed 20% of the gross enrolment ratio and will touch the 30% mark by 2020, Prof Mukhopadhyay said Indians have the aspiration to pursue education and also the ability to pay for it. He however lamented that there is a lot of push for higher education because of its business potential while schools and colleges remain under-developed.
A great believer in the potential of Information Technology as a learning tool, the professor said all students should have laptops with internet connection and learn from the rich material on the internet. He said even mobile telephones now have internet facilities and colleges, instead of banning mobile phones on the campuses should get the students to use it to learn better. Giving the example of Assam he said that while the Government gave away 26,000 laptops to students of Class XI- XII, none of the teachers have a laptop. “Computers make teachers more empowered for they can also expand their learning. Unfortunately while parents have locked up the laptops of their children thereby making the exercise of giving them a computer a futile one, most teachers cannot afford a laptop,” Prof Mukhopadhyay remarked.
Pointing to the deficiencies of the Indian education system Prof Mukhopadhyay said that generic graduate skills should be included in the college curriculum to empower students with employable skills. He lamented the fact that education still remained within the grasp of the elite with few people stealing the show.
Speaking of the status of teachers, Prof Mukhopadhyay said that in many colleges there are not even enough chairs for all teachers. So while the senior ones sit the junior teachers remain standing. “This was the situation 30 years ago when I joined as young college teacher. This is still the situation today. If teachers are not respected they will never be inspired to do better. Salary alone is not the incentive as is borne out by research, but social recognition is a big morale booster”, he added. Mukhopadhyay however, underlined the fact that teachers must earn respect from the way they carry themselves and by the quality of their work.
Also present at the programme was P.K. Srivastava, Principal Secretary Education, Govt. of Meghalaya, former Rajya Sabha MP Dr. B.B. Dutta and Dilip Mukherjee, an itinerant educationist.