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Last week,
we discussed about the pathetic quality of engineering education
in self-financing colleges. A majority of self-financing colleges
recruit BE graduates as faculty members and there is no formal
training given to them. Because of poor salary (read a consolidated
salary ignoring the AICTE norms) only those fresh graduates
who do not get any other job join these colleges as faculty.Over
the years, these faculty members should be sent to winter and
summer courses to acquire more knowledge in their fields to elevate
their understanding of the subject that they teach. The quality
of such winter/summer courses do not undergo any form of scrutiny.
The funding
to a college to conduct such a course should strictly be based
on the facilities that the hosting college has, in terms of laboratory
and teaching expertise. If a college offers a summer/winter course
for engineering faculty on a subject, that college should either
be the Centre of Excellence in that subject or should come closer
to be regarded as the "Centre of Excellence".
In the AICTE accreditation scheme, a department
that was not assigned 'A' grade should not be allowed to conduct
winter/summer courses. In fact, it would be nice if AICTE introduces
accreditation scheme for subjects/areas of study rather than for
a whole department.
For instance, a chemical engineering department which earns a
'A' grade from AICTE accreditation team for its Process Control
subject (by virtue of having a well-equipped Process control laboratory
and an expert faculty on this subject) alone should be funded
to conduct winter/summer course on Process Control. Nowadays these
courses (both conducting them and attending them) for a faculty
from an engineering college have become more of a ritual. Teaching,
whether it is for a primary class or for a college student has
many dimensions to it. A thorough understanding
of a subject is a base requirement for a teacher. Over and above
this, teachers should have a passion and a strong appreciation
for the subject that they teach. A strong appreciation for the
subject is possible only if the teacher updates himself with the
progress in the field. A bird's eye view of the subject is required
to establish and demonstrate the connections (of concepts) to
the students. The ability to link concepts and impress students
with the evolution of those concepts from fundamental laws of
the subject is what distinguishes a good teacher from a not-so
competent teacher.
This
bird's eye view can be acquired by doing an in-depth study of
subjects by three ways:
(a)By formally acquiring a higher degree (M.E/ Ph.D)
(b)By constantly revisiting a subject or updating oneself with
developments in that subject by attending courses, seminars and
conferences, and
(c) By being inquisitive and carrying out projects funded by agencies
or near-by local industries.
The basic
requirements for all these ways of developing one's teaching ability
are passion, inquisitiveness, and perseverance.
Basically
the most important aspect to be tested while choosing a teaching
staff is the quality of mind of the aspirant. Researches
have shown that out of what is taught by a teacher in a lecture,
on an average only 30% of that is imparted to students. If the
teacher himself has a limited knowledge, how much would then reach
the brains of not so intelligent students who do not possess a
self-learning skill and who need teachers' assistance to enhance
their knowledge. The managements of self financing colleges must
realize that investment in teaching staff is the major asset of
their colleges.
Another reality
with regard to teaching staffs in self-financing colleges is that
a faculty who joins the college mostly does not take the job seriously
as he/she would have taken up this position as a stop gap arrangement.
Many colleges also do not keep the teaching staff on their permanent
payroll and choose to send them on leave during semester vacation
without pay.
How can we expect
such managements to develop the teaching ability of their teaching
faculty?. Because of low salary, lack of growth opportunities, and
lack of surety for the job position itself, the faculty does not
take their job seriously
Even the analysis of the recent semester exam results announced
by Anna university shows a strong correlation between bad performance
of students from a college and the recentness of that college and
inexperience of its teachers. The moment a staff gets a permanent
job in another established college or in any other industry, the
students become helpless with regard to the subject that was handled
by the leaving staff. Either that subject has to be entrusted to
a visiting guest lecturer or appoint whoever has applied to the
management irrespective of the candidates' teaching capability.
This leads to a viscious cycle of poor teaching and thus the students'
interests suffer.
The lack of experience of teaching makes the lecturers in these
self-financing colleges to resort to concise notes prepared by some
experienced faculty that are floating around amongst these colleges
. Thus enters the surrogate textbooks for engineering subjects.
The college management does not understand the need to keep few
copies of textbooks prescribed by the University in their libraries
for the students to refer to them.
The syllabus
for every subject lists text books and reference books which would
have material on titles and themes outlined in the syllabus. The
concise notes enable the students to prepare for the exams and
the teacher finds it easier to prepare from one source and repeat
them in the class. The knowledge earned by a wider and deeper
ploughing of subject by referring to many different text books
and reference books would alone provide an appreciation for the
subject. Otherwise it would only prepare the students to appear
for exams and scrap through the exam. Is this the kind of engineers
we would like to churn out year after year? Already the severe
lack of laboratory facilities handicap a prospective engineer
and to top it this narrow approach of preparing students for exams
goes against the spirit of quality education. Even at primary
classes, the emerging thinking is that we should not only be loading
information through text books to kids but we must be teaching
them how to learn. At engineering college level, if we teach a
limited knowledge with the use of a limited material, how would
the graduating engineers have a wider appreciation and practical
creativity to solve problems on a real-life job?
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