‘Review education policy, Universities have gone dud’ says ex-IISc director P. Balaram

TIRUR: Former Director of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and eminent Professor of molecular biophysics, P Balaram has called upon to review the National education policy which came into existence some 25 years ago. Speaking at the panel discussion on ‘The role of universities in science and technology research’, at the second day of the 24th Swadeshi Science Congress, jointly organized by the Malayalam University and Swadeshi Science Movement at the Varsity’s Tirur campus, he flayed that no innovative programmes are coming out of the universities, which had been bestowed with the autonomous status.
“While pondering over the problems in higher education sector we are talking about language issue and colonial mindset which is irrelevant. There are many fundamental issues in teaching and education which we did not address. No amendment on education laws were passed in the country in the last 25 years. It is unlikely to change the situation in the next 10 years,” he lambasted. Prof Balaram opined that the powerful bureaucratic lobby was always singing a different tune when it comes to the issue of modification of the policy. Talking about the renowned Indian Physicist Prof G.N. Ramachandran, he said that both Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments had forgotten the great scientist.
Malayalam University Vice Chancellor, Dr K. Jayakumar noted that in the name of democracy we have inducted ‘generalists’in Universities among academicians. “But what happened was generalist is trying to do the work of academician and academician is trying to get into the shoes of generalist,” he said. He rued that now a days, research work is only for obtaining phd certificate.
Dr C Vijayan (IIT Chennai) felt that Universities should be left to academia and not put in public domain. “We should gather information and knowledge from various sources. But internalizing that information is paramount,” he observed. Dr N.B. Narasimha Prasad (Centre for Water Resources Development and Management, Kozhikode) also spoke.