‘Education In The Context Of An Emerging South Asian Confluence’ – A Talk By Prof. Marmar Mulhopadhyay
Date: Wed Jul 02, 2014 - Wed Jul 02, 2014
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
Professor Marmar Mukhopadhyay was invited to deliver a talk at an event co-organised by Asian Confluence and Women’s College, Shillong. The purpose of the event was to deliberate and analyse the different aspects of the current education system in India.
Prof Marmar is India’s noted educationist and currently Director of Educational Technology and Management Academy, Gurgaon. He was formerly the Director of NIEPA and Chairman of National Open School; Vice President of ICDE, (Oslo); and Member of the Steering Committee of International Multi-channel Action Group on Education (Washington DC), amongst other important responsibilities.
Talking about education in the context of an emerging South Asian confluence, he highlighted the various deficiencies in the education system pertaining to higher education, research, and infrastr ucture in India. Referring to the IITs and IIMs, he said these are good for undergraduate programmes but suffer from research vacuum at the higher educational level. Pointing to the research scenario in India, he said India lacks the ambience and eco-system and also the facilities for path breaking research hence all Nobel Prize winners from India have had to go abroad to come up with research that merited them the Nobel Prize. He lamented that there is a lot of push for higher education because of its business potential while schools and colleges remain under-developed.
Prof. Marmar believes in the potential of Information Technology as a learning tool and opined that all students should have laptops with internet connection and learn from the rich material on the internet. Additionally he emphasised on the usage of mobile phones with internet facilities that will enable the students to learn better. Giving the example of Assam he said that while the Government gave away 26,000 laptops to students of Class XI- XII, none of the teachers have a laptop. “Computers make teachers more empowered for they can also expand their learning. Unfortunately while parents have locked up the laptops of their children thereby making the exercise of giving them a computer a futile one, most teachers cannot afford a laptop,” Prof Mukhopadhyay remarked.
Pointing to the deficiencies of the Indian education system Prof Mukhopadhyay said that generic graduate skills should be included in the college curriculum to empower students with employable skills. He lamented the fact that education still remained within the grasp of the elite with few people stealing the show. Speaking on the curriculum aspect, he pointed out that ‘education in India should have a multicultural curriculum’. He spoke extensively on the need for a better facility and ambience for teachers to impart education so that they can inspire the generations to come.
The evening saw a host of distinguished guests namely – P.K. Srivastava, Principal Secretary Education, Govt. of Meghalaya, former Rajya Sabha MP Dr. B.B. Dutta and Dilip Mukherjee, an itinerant educationist who were present to witness the oration of Prof. Mukhopadhyay on such an important topic.
