On Education - Articles - Vision and Tasks Ahead of Higher Education

Vision and Tasks Ahead of Higher Education

TOWARDS A NEW SYNTHESIS OF KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE

 1. India realises, like other nations of the world, that humanity stands today at the head of a new age of a large synthesis of knowledge, and that the East and the West have to collaborate in bringing about concerted action for universal upliftment, and lasting peace and unity.

In this new age, great cultural achievements of the past have to be recovered and enriched in the context of the contemporary advancement so that humanity can successfully meet the evolutionary and revolutionary challenges and bring about a new type of humanity marked by integrated powers of physical, emotional, dynamic, intellectual, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual potentialities.

2. Frontiers of knowledge are, therefore, bound to expand unimaginably, and new researches will oblige humanities, sciences, technologies, and fine arts to arrive at equations and new combinations.

NEED FOR VAST CHANGES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

3. All these factors will impel higher education to undergo vast changes in respect of objectives, contents and methods. It will have to bear momentous responsibilities for generating new vistas of knowledge and wisdom, bolder forms of courage and heroism, unprecedented arts of harmony and beauty, and unimaginable skills suited to developing technologies and crafts. It will also be required to set more exacting standards of excellence and perfection.

COMING OF INFORMATION AGE

4. The world is entering into an Information Age and developments in communication, information and technology will open up new and cost-effective approaches for providing the reach of higher education to the youth as well as to those who need continuing education for meeting the demands of explosion of information, fast-changing nature of occupations, and life-long education.

SOVEREIGNTY OF YOUNG PEOPLE

5. We also feel called upon to encourage and support the forces and developments relating to the learning society and to the theme of the sovereignty of learners, particularly young people.

OPERATION KNOWLEDGE

6. India has already decided to launch "Operation Knowledge" as a part of the Information Technology Action Plan. This will mean not only continuous expansion and improvement of the facilities of modern equipment but also a gigantic task to redesign teaching-learning materials in every discipline appropriate to the special demands of the new technologies and media of transmission and new teacher-pupil relations

DETERMINING NEW OBJECTIVES

7. A most difficult task ahead is to conceive certain new objectives of higher education. It will not be enough to promote specialised knowledge and skills of professional excellence; a deeper and subtler aim will be to develop abilities to think globally and to resolve emerging tensions between rationalistic, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual elements of personality. The objective of complete education of complete human being will need to be underlined as of highest importance.

DESIGNING NEW CONTENTS

8. Another major task will be to change the contents of higher education. Appropriate courses have to be designed so as to achieve a proper blending of wide general knowledge and such specialisation, which would have in-built facilities to renew relevant knowledge and skills at increasingly shorter intervals and even on a continuous basis. Increasing freedom of choice in selecting subjects of studies has to be ensured, and interdisciplinary studies will have to be so devised that they will foster understanding and appreciation of national history in the context of the goal of multicultural understanding and of creating in the world a harmonious human family, appropriate to the ancient Indian ideal of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam". [i]

STUDENT-CENTRED  EDUCATION AND DYNAMIC METHODS

9. Methods of higher education also have to be appropriate to the needs of learning to learn, learning to do, learning to be and learning to become.

Student-centred education and employment of dynamic methods of education will require from teachers new attitudes and new skills. Methods of teaching through lectures will have to be subordinated to the methods that will lay stress on self-study, personal consultation between teachers and pupils, and dynamic sessions of seminars and workshops.

TEACHERS: NEW DIMENSIONS OF THEIR ROLE

10. Special emphasis on value-oriented education will impart a new dimension to the role of the teacher. For value-orientation cannot be imparted without teachers' own value-orientation. Again, the objective of integral development of personality cannot be fulfilled without teachers developing their own integral personality.

It is increasingly recognised that if the defences of peace are to be built in the minds of men and women, and if the qualities of co-operation, mutuality and harmony are to be fostered in humanity, the role of the teacher will include the task of changing the tendencies of egoism and domination that are the ultimate causes of division and war.

It is particularly for this reason that a new programme of teachers' training has to be envisaged, and this programme will not only cater to the continuous development of professional skills but also continuous development of teachers' ethical and spiritual abilities.

Appropriate to the new and difficult demands on teachers, we have to constantly raise the status of the teacher in the country.

WIDER ACCESS

11. India recognises that access to higher education will have to be so broad-based that the system of open universities has to continue to grow and it will not only have to be extended vastly but also to be so designed that it can foster among students constant motivation to learn and to develop not only academic abilities but also practical skills and talents that are being demanded by the modern world.

STUDENT-CENTRED  EDUCATION AND DYNAMIC METHODS

9. Methods of higher education also have to be appropriate to the needs of learning to learn, learning to do, learning to be and learning to become.

Student-centred education and employment of dynamic methods of education will require from teachers new attitudes and new skills. Methods of teaching through lectures will have to be subordinated to the methods that will lay stress on self-study, personal consultation between teachers and pupils, and dynamic sessions of seminars and workshops.

TEACHERS: NEW DIMENSIONS OF THEIR ROLE

10. Special emphasis on value-oriented education will impart a new dimension to the role of the teacher. For value-orientation cannot be imparted without teachers' own value-orientation. Again, the objective of integral development of personality cannot be fulfilled without teachers developing their own integral personality.

It is increasingly recognised that if the defences of peace are to be built in the minds of men and women, and if the qualities of co-operation, mutuality and harmony are to be fostered in humanity, the role of the teacher will include the task of changing the tendencies of egoism and domination that are the ultimate causes of division and war.

It is particularly for this reason that a new programme of teachers' training has to be envisaged, and this programme will not only cater to the continuous development of professional skills but also continuous development of teachers' ethical and spiritual abilities.

Appropriate to the new and difficult demands on teachers, we have to constantly raise the status of the teacher in the country.

WIDER ACCESS

11. India recognises that access to higher education will have to be so broad-based that the system of open universities has to continue to grow and it will not only have to be extended vastly but also to be so designed that it can foster among students constant motivation to learn and to develop not only academic abilities but also practical skills and talents that are being demanded by the modern world.
 

NATIONAL TESTING SERVICE

12. A major task ahead is to bring about radical changes in the system of examination. Methods of testing have to be so devised that not only will tests be rigorous but they will be so flexible and of varied nature so as to be appropriate to the demands of promoting various curricular and non- curricular abilities, physical fitness, artistic taste, and value-orientation. In this context, National Testing Service needs to be established, the tests of which can be availed on voluntary basis by those who may need certification or admission for employment irrespective of whether they hold prescribed degree or diploma. The new testing system should facilitate delinking of degrees from jobs and curricular reform bringing in emphasis on multidisciplinary courses. Such changes will also be a recognition of the sovereignty of the learner and for making education reality-oriented and learner-centred.
 

TOWARDS LEARNING SOCIETY

13. As we move towards a learning society, every human activity will require contributions from experts and this will place the entire sector of higher education in a sharp focus. Although the priorities, which are being assigned today to the task of ‘Education for All’ will continue to be preponderant, the country will have to prepare itself to invest and more higher education and, simultaneously, measures will have to be taken to refine, diversify and upgrade higher education and research programmes.

MAJOR CHANGES IN SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE

14. Our present system of governance of higher education is undergoing increasing strain and sooner rather than later, major changes will have to be effected not only to ensure greater autonomy and accountability but also to facilitate rapid changes in the very framework, directions and goals.

GREATER INVESTMENT

15. Financial crisis in the educational sector imposes several difficult tasks not only relating to fee structure and new partnership with education of industry and various income and profit generating sectors but also to the cost-effective designs of structures and methodologies of education that can cater to the needs of massive programmes of education as also to those of intensive education that aim at the care of the individual perfection. The advances in communication technology, specially the satellite based teleconferencing, have made it possible to use distance education for training skills in virtual classrooms. It is expected that technology, rightly designed for developing deeper and higher dimensions of personality, will at once bring down the costs and increase the efficiency of the educational system.