Education be Damned

 I think there is a mistake in the title of this post ... it should have been ”Education be Dammed”. If one wanted education to be a frozen artefact in a museum, they could not do worse than follow the so-called Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). I, to the extent I understand Indian higher education, endorse the opinion expressed here.

Indian higher education as a buffet; or, a potluck, if you will. There is an element of first-come first-served in it.

Imagine you go to a wedding and there are a number of weddings going on around the place. What is on offer at the specific function you were invited to is not to your taste buds; you take your plate around (you do not have to sneak out or sneak in; this is your entitlement) and scan all the items spread out at the venues nearby and fill your plate. Yet, when you finish your dinner you offer thanks only to the host of the wedding you were invited to! The others who contributed to your sumptuous dinner are almost unacknowledged.

This is what ABC does, and the analogy to the wedding venue market gets more relevant still. The various higher educational establishments are accredited-cum-ranked. Only supposedly the very best government institutions draw a premium in the job market (I do not want to mention ***s or #####s by name here) and though they are subsidized, the entry barrier they have erected is very tall such that to enter their portals you must have been well endowed, not merely intellectually but wallet-wise. One’ parents must also be risk-takers. There is prior distillation but pretty much unseen and definitely unacknowledged.

Just imagine – hundreds of students from many private deemed-universities would desire the imprimatur of the above unnamed yet undeservedly highly esteemed institutions and higher education entities, at least for some courses.

Many of the deemed universities run on shoe-string budgets, not because they are not well endowed but because the profit is to be maximized. If you do not do much research, you do not belong there. If you do not have a congested network of similar researchers, that is another strike against you.

Never mind that the research output in these places is nothing to write home about. After all, through networking what you have done is not dissimilar to breeding within a species! The output is there to be seen, but within a generation, it becomes sterile.

Why am I talking about research in deemed universities when the focus is ostensibly on academics, courses and teaching? Hold your horses, as I am just coming to it. Richard Feynman said that he could not do research if he did not also teach alongside. There are very few teachers with that kind of temperament - holistic viewpoint, you may want to call it (I do not, as I find it hard to define what “holistic” could, bereft of context, even mean).

It is this context that is being stripped off by ABC. How so?  By begging the question. Suppose I see in a student’s academic record that she got an ‘A’ in a course conducted by an *** faculty member instead of one from the institution in which she had registered (call it the ‘home’ institution), human tendency being what it is (and I am sure I carry this), in all likelihood I would put a premium on the marks she has scored. This is not the end of it – there must be competition even among these elite ***s or #####s, each vying to outdo the others and we end up on a slippery upslope and reach the apex – nothing is impossible in Indian higher education scenario! It is like parachuting down on to the peak of Everest! The article under reference hints at this as regards MOOC courses, and I do not discard this observation.

What is the benefit for the teacher in the ‘home’ institution? One gets more time to do research, of howsoever dubious value! Hope you now understand how research essentially cannibalizes teaching in an institution supposedly nurturing students, student researchers and researchers, all simultaneously.

One last thing – student-centric. What is this animal? Or, how much does this vegetable cost per kilo? Only very few students truly care a lot about learning; their focus is very sharp on earning-potential. I do not blame them. Look at the parents. I don’t blame them either. Look at the marriage-market. Yes, I do not need to go any further.

Let us for a moment think on the shibboleth – learning should be fun! Oh, yeah, let us have a food-fight in the cafeteria and let us learn experientially (an often abused word), how far the piece of cake would fly! The last few frames of the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever came to mind!

Learning is fun – this is the idea that should be drilled into the minds of students. Even memorizing multiplication table, even in these days of calculators on the move, should be fun.

Why go as far as multiplication, nothing but successive addition, when we can think even addition as a fun activity. Really, how?

Add any two three-digit numbers ensuring you get a four-digit number, with carry over in each place – 624 + 397 = 1021. Do it once, mentally and remember how you did it. Take a rest, comeback and do the summation again. Surprise, the way you did it the second time is unlikely to be the method/sequence you used the first time.

Just to make this more concrete, the first time I did the above, I did it as (397 + 3) + (624 – 3), whereas the second time, it went 600 + 400 + 24 -3! Your mind is playing games with you! THAT IS FUN!

Likewise, teaching should also be fun, not of the boisterous kind, but of the deeper fun of “pleasure of finding things out”, in Feynman’s words.

How do you get such a pleasure from a “fabulous teacher” from any ***s teaching you remotely? The path is not visible to me.

“Remotely’ is a two-edged word: One, from a distance, a positive sense when we were locked-in; two, now when we are not, without involvement, as in “reserved in manner”. You be reserved and expect your students to have fun in learning! Fine, and we know what that leads to!

ABC must have been the brainchild of a neophyte management graduate – learnt how to coin catchy abbreviations – ABC is truly catchy, as in the old phrase, “As easy as ABC!”

Try to get education on track not through fancy phrases, but through old fashioned ways, true engagement between the teacher and the taught (no corporeal punishment), or between learners at two different levels of learning.

Show me a teacher who says she does not learn while teaching, I will show you a teacher who does not teach!

Say Good-bye to ABC. XYZ, anyone?

Raghuram Ekambaram