IISc was given Rs. 100 crores in the last budget to help it upgrade to world class. However, IISc director P.Balaram points out, quite rightly, that
Rs. 100 crores may look like a big sum, but it is not much. Every new laboratory that comes up costs us at least Rs. 40 lakhs. The new institutes that the Ministry of Human Resource Development is building in Kolkata and Pune have a budget of Rs. 500 crores... Let us be clear. IISc. cannot become a Stanford or a Harvard just because it got a Rs. 100-crore grant. That expectation is unrealistic. It can begin modernising its facilities with the grant.Basically IISc will spend this money to
- Modernise physics and biology labs
- Digitise books in IISc library
- Start earth sciences department
- Focus on emerging areas of nanotechnology and nanosciences
However there is something else that I saw in Abinandanan's post which is worrying me. Regarding a proposal to start undergraduate program, he quotes a news item on The Hindu, 29th October 2005:
The proposed undergraduate programme is contingent upon acquiring the land as the present campus does not have the infrastructure to meed the demands of an additional undergraduate programme.I am surprised about this. If IISc doesn't show commitment to undergraduate education, how do they expect to create good enough students at the graduate level? Creating a new set of faculty members will not be a solution. I would even go so far as to say that any funding to IISc must be contingent upon them starting the undergraduate school and agree to create a certain number of undergraduates every year.[...]
However, the idea has evoked a mixed response among the IISc faculty. Several of them feel the establishment of an undergraduate programme will take away from the institute's avowed focus on research. "The workload of teaching undergraduates is far too much. Many of them have to be spoon-fed," says a senior faculty member.
[...]
Acknowledging the ambivalent response, the senior faculty member involved with the initiative says that even if an undergraduate programme is established, there would be no need for current faculty members to be concerned because new faculty members will be hired for hte undergraduate programme. "We will probably go on a faculty recruitment drive by which a whole new group will be added."
I have looked at the Madras University syllabus for BSc Physics. A nephew of mine is studing in a local Chennai college. The syllabus is horrible, the teaching is atrocious. Three years of junk. I recommended a few basic physics books to get him inetersted in physics (as opposed to writing and cracking the useless exams). His college library doesn't have Feynman Lectures. They have couple of copies of Asimov's "Understanding Physics", but there is too much demand. You can't have it for more than 15 days. I am sure there are several other recent books (which I have not heard off), but none of that will be there in the local college library.
While it is going to be difficult to improve the standard of undergraduate science education across the country, effort should be made at least in a few locations. IISc cannot shirk its responsibility in this regard.
Hi Badri,
ReplyDeleteAm quite skeptical about whether places like IISc would honestly attempt at something like that(the comment on scinece eduation). I had spent about 6years with different IITs and have quite some friends at IISc as well..its a very prevalant attitude amongst the faculty community there to look upon teaching as an unnecessary burden and as if its a intrusion to their single minded focus on resreach(which they put it on high pedestal).
So i really wonder whether there is any point in expecting them to do it..On the otherside there are quite a few second leevl instituion who is mainly focussed on imparting education(like BITS, REC's) and i hear that those places have a large number of inspiring teachers..which is becoming a rarity in places like IIT's and IIsc these days..and may be thats a place to expect this change
About ur comment on the state of local colleges and their science education..i was talking to a prof from A.M. Jain colege..he was one of the very motivated teachers..someone who makes it a point to introduce Feynman lectures and Berkeley phsyics course even to us who were doing Phsyics as an ancillary subject..he says the sociological factors are largely to blame for the state it currently is in..he said leave alone good students
and good materials..its even becoming hard to attract students to classes in undergraduate scinecve programme these days as most dont see any purpose to the education in terms of carrer..while learning some computer skills at some teaching shops like NIIT can fetch you a lucrative job offers even with a class 12 education..what purpose does a BSC education serve kind of reasoning(not that i approve of it..but there is a sociological contxt is what i want to state here)..
Best regards,
Magesh
Hi Magesh,
ReplyDelete1. Re: your point on IISc (and IIT) faculty not interested in teaching undergrads... if this is true, then this is sad. I am not so sure about IITs as they have been taking in undergrads all along. In fact, the IITs started as undergrad schools and only later started adding the post-grad program and PhDs. Though today the undergrads will only be about 33-40% of the total strength.
2. If the established institutions do not want to create undergrads, the govt. should seriously look at identifying institutions which can be fast tracked to good teaching schools with excellent facilities. One can't become a grad and do well in research (which I hope the Ivory Tower wallahs in IISc will understand one day) without first going through the under grad education with solid foundation.
3. A science education (and worse, math!) is not the priority for most students today, it is true. They go for some sort of engineering degree in third rate self-financing colleges, and hope to get some IT job. The rest look at BBA, BCA (all, shocking curricula) and then again hope to land up an IT job. But a solid science/math undergradute education is essential for the country. It will be upto the school teachers to get students interested in science education.
It is a huge challenge. I don't have ready answers for this now though.
Hi Badri,
ReplyDeleteThats true IITs are having a functional undergraduate programme. What i mentioned was just the prevalent attitude. Ofcourse, i have personally myself benefited from some of the ebst teachers in IIT. So its definitely not a generalisation.
Your point that such a thing has to start at the school level is definietly a very valid point. But unfortunately that is confronted with more problems. I jsu once tried to trackback some of the best middle aged school teachers i have had. I found out most are not in the Job anymore. Most of them are now employed with some of those NRI schols in the middle east offering coaching classes to let the kids from there join engineering/medicine schools in India.
Best regards,
Magesh
Hi Badri,
ReplyDeleteWas surfing around when I came across this article. I agree with Magesh, that IISc profs do consider teaching a big burden and unless its a research oriented course (research masters' course) they are not very interested. I am one of his friends who had spent 4 yrs at IISc, and before that 3 yrs in BSc at Vivekananda college. I had some very good teachers during my BSc days who were so good in their fundamentals that I haven't seen such good Profs with such an interest in imparting education especially dealing with fundamentals in IISc or abroad (I am in Twente univ and previously was in Erasmus univ). So, I think it is quite an unfair statement that all education at the BSc level is bad. I guess it depends on the particular university.
Rgds,
Chintan