35.Impressions on Quality Concerns

Dr.Ningamma Betsur, Associate Professor, Mysore University was the Resource Person for the thematic session on quality concerns  in Education, at  the National Seminar organized on National Education Day (11 November 2011) by the Department of Education, University of Calicut. During the  lecture,  the speaker attempted to explore several dimensions of quality. The concept of quality she opined  is :

·        inherently multidimensional.

·        linked to results and partly to objectives and components that intervene to reach these results.

·        values with time, need, interests and convictions of various groups and people.

·        not homogenous at any given time and the heterogeneity of quality is associated with objective and subjective considerations.

Other observations made include:

·        In India for instance, we may place moral values at the top  while assessing quality...not perhaps in other countries.

·        Earlier quality education for women in India meant making them come out of their homes and undergo  a regular and useful course of study in an educational institution. Today, it focuses on women empowerment.

·        It is a pity that after  getting eighty percent marks for the Pre-University examination, on failing to get an admission for the MBBS  course, students commit suicide. It is high  time our education empowered  our children to accept  failure.

·        If quality is our prime concern, we ought to develop the  ability in our students  to ask critical questions. But what normally happens is that in our classes in colleges, teachers lecture  where information from the teacher’s notes is transferred to the student’s notes with real information entering either head!

During her lecture, Dr. Ningamma introduced a few  anecdotes to illustrate her arguments. Given below are  a few:

·        Once   while  food was being served  during a marriage  function  a relative of  a  civil engineer  noticed that the sambar  just poured was running down the banana leaf. At once he asked the  engineer: “What kind of Civil Engineer are you who cannot even manage   the flow of sambar!” . Can this failure be attributed to the kind of education we are imparting in our engineering colleges? It is here that issues related to quality should come up for discussion.

·        A student once  inquired  why he is denied the privilege of not using a chit with the main points, during  the university examination, when many Professors who  engage classes for them, use a chit with the main points jotted down!

·        One great advantage of the setting up of NAAC in India is that many college buildings which had not received a coating of paint for decades have now adorned a  charming look.

Dr. Ningamma during her lecture referred to the  communiqué of the World Conference on Higher Education 2009  “Quality criteria must reflect the overall objectives of higher education, notably the aim of cultivating in students critical and independent thought and the capacity of learning throughout life. They should encourage innovation and diversity”. [UNESCO (2009) 2009 World Conference on Higher Education : The New Dynamics of Higher education and research for Societal Change and development: Communiqué. Author, Paris. p.4]

After the presentation, when  the audience  were invited to join the deliberations, I made the following observation: “Well..., the UNESCO communiqué  highlights the cognitive domain... what about the other domains/ dimensions?...We in India normally go into raptures when we make a reference to education of the Vedic age, particularly the Gurukula System of Education...but  did we have a NAAC then?”

A  front page news item in the Malayalam Daily, Kerala Kaumudi  dated 13 November 2011 reads:  Ninety percent of the students in the self financing engineering colleges in Kerala failed to clear their final examination!

Any comments dear reader?