An education policy for South Asia in the 21st century

Inter-disciplinary and cross-border cooperation:

Text of the Lalith Athulathmudali Memorial Oration delivered by Professor Dinesh Singh, Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi on Nov. 26, 2011, at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, Auditorium, Colombo

[Continued from yesterday]

How can we formulate the most appropriate policy? It will happen when people like you in the audience show concern and create a civil society movement that encourages policy makers to think along these lines. Only then will rulers heed. Rulers are preoccupied with other issues. We must take action that draws their attention. I urge each one of you to take the message that education needs a complete overhaul in many spheres.

There would not be a positive outcome if a mathematics institute does not cooperate with a biology institute. If a Physicist does not interact with a Chemist a fusion could not be brought about. If a Space Engineer does not interact with a mathematical modeling person through IT, advancements in space technology would not come about. Great ideas worthy of the Nobel Prize will not emerge. We should have learnt that from the West, which we have refused to do. Let us allow policy to drive that connection and ensure that it happens across the length and breadth of the region. Let us stop treating the region by its boundaries. Let us recognize the fact that even the West can stumble. One of the weaknesses of Western institutions of education has been the slowness of movement and lack of quickness of feet. The Presidents of such private institutions have admitted in private that they have indeed become too slow and acknowledge the need for reinvention of their education models.

New challenges

There are many ways to address these issues. If we are to face every problem in our region head-on we need to reorient; hurl new challenges. Policy must identify challenges. When challenges are identified and placed before society the young respond. It happened during Gandhi's time. The young respond through innovation. There must be a policy that allows youth to identify and be inspired by the challenges that confront them. The best way to do that would be through technology. The marvelous tool of technology is at our disposal now. The institutions of the West did not have this technology when they started out. Therefore they have become slow on their feet. If technology is used appropriately it could help in confronting great challenges in education such as the creation of enough Math educators in both countries. But we are not using technology adequately as there is no policy to drive such an exercise. IT and computers facilitate the generation of sufficient knowledge and modules that could reach all parts of our lands to affect education in mathematics in a creative manner. Regrettably the absence of policy has excluded such an outcome.

Learning with hands

I speak of all forms of education. If reform is desired in schools and in the domain of higher education, it must be done through policy that does not allow the compartmentalization of schools and higher education. Policy must recognize that there is seamlessness. Gandhi's statement in the context of education must be recognized in policy making.

He never spoke about anything until he had experimented and learnt. In the context of education he set up a school he personally administered. He set up a university which is functioning even today. He set up a polytechnic in science for women in whose governing body sat India's great scientists. Having accomplished all that, he had said that it was important to make students use their hands in education. Knowledge would pervade their hearts only when they used their hands to learn. Using one's hands is loathed today. All our institutions have become disinterested and detached from encouraging students to use their hands in education. Such an exercise must be driven into policy.

Discovering good practices

Some of the greatest expansions in science happened because several of these scientists used their own hands. Michael Faraday built everything with his bare hands and became the greatest scientist in history. Sir Chandasekhara Venkata Raman built marvelous equipment with his own hands with less than Rupees 200 and went on to win the Nobel Prize for physics in 1930. Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin, the greatest drug to be discovered because he was washing Petri dishes with his own hands. But at my institution of learning there is disdain for using hands. Policy must drive that from school to college to university and to research without stratification. From that policy would stem a hybrid model. It should incorporate the good practices of the West and those that have existed in our land. A hybrid model should connect the use of hands with knowledge. We need to encourage in a situational way innovation with hands on approaches. I see that everywhere in India but educational institutions from schools to colleges are not interested in studying them. For instance the work of the Dabbawallahs of Bombay could be described as mathematics in action. They deliver lunch boxes from the homes of people to their places of work.

There is great knowledge happening there. The Dabbawallahs do not know that they are using mathematics. Not a single educational institution teaches the mathematics surrounding the operation; there is total disconnection. Hybrid models must be brought into our systems of education and our systems of education must go into areas that are not often inquired into.

Engineers are very proud of inventing single processing. But single processing had been in action long before. I always looked down upon the profession of actuaries because I considered the task of calculating insurance risks and premiums a contemptible line of work. Then I learnt that the actuaries of England invented all the essentials of single processing through their work much before the engineers, in just as good a fashion. Knowledge therefore can come from all sources and from everywhere. Educational institutions in Sri Lanka, India and elsewhere however are de-linked from such sources of knowledge. We must feed on each other. Policy must necessarily encourage networking and connectivity.

Providing innovative and flexible opportunities

Innovation should be set down as a platform through policy. Innovation that challenges and encourages youth must send them out in to platforms where innovation is taking place. Policy must create hybrid models where flexibility and innovation challenges are provided for the youth and acknowledged as existing not within the walls of colleges and campuses, but everywhere. Once we begin to do this we understand that knowledge systems cannot stand in isolation. They feed on each other. There ought to be inter-disciplinary collaboration.

There must be hands on usage. In the University of Delhi core-curricular activities such as sports and art never count towards a degree. I do not allow students who take part in an art exhibition to consider such exercises as contributing to the degree although that is also education. Policy does not allow that flexibility. The region needs it urgently. The act of communication, the act of quantitative thinking, the act of working in groups, the act of working in confidence (not over confidence) do seek and solve challenges of society. This could be done through technology and IT. Institutions must move towards change in order to solve problems.

India's challenges are enormous. In 20 years it has to provide hands on skills and knowledge to 500 million youth. If it does not innovate India is doomed; it is in innovation that cooperation becomes essential. There is an ongoing innovative experiment taking shape in India, in which the University of Delhi is also a lead partner. Through the internet super highway band width of the National Knowledge Network of India all educational institutions are to be connected. It is going to be a platform to learn from each other and teach each other and innovate through that experience.

We are in the process of creating a Meta University in India through such a process. Meta University is not a traditional open learning institution. Through the National Knowledge Network students can enroll in a Meta University from anywhere in India and take part in formal course work. The student can work towards a degree in his/her own time and according to skill. The student is given the option of moving out and entering the stream later through the operation of Meta universities. The University of Delhi is a lead participant. I urge Sri Lanka to think along similar lines to link to such a process and take advantage of it. People everywhere are looking out for flexible options. Such a policy will help us to move collectively towards a situation that we all envisage for our education institutions and the system as a whole.

Concluded