HVK Archives: Comrades and professors
Comrades and professors - The Telegraph
Rudrangshu Mukherjee
()
17 May 1997
Title : Comrades and professors
Author : Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Publication : The Telegraph
Date : May 17, 1997
There is the story that god once applied for a professorship at Harvard
University. His application was turned down for two reasons. First, god
had written only one book. Second, god was notorious for passing on his
teaching duties to his son. There is more than humour in this joke. It
underlines the exacting standards Harvard expects from candidates who
are aspiring for tenured positions.
Other universities, known as centres of excellence in teaching and
research, have similar high standards for their faculty High quality
research, regular and high calibre publications and dedication to
teaching and students are some of the virtues which are expected from
academics. There are exceptions, of course. Some Nobel laureates in
United States universities are known for their aversion to teaching.
And in one celebrated case in Oxford, a professor of history was known
more for his presence in Margaret Thatcher's think tank than on the
faculty board. Such exceptions apart, a good university is known by its
high standards of recruitment.
The University of Calcutta, when it took its motto - "advancement of
learning" - seriously was no different. Men like Ashutosh Mookerjee
were known to scour the country for talent. One has only to think of
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and C.V. Raman. But these standards, like many
other things in the University of Calcutta, have gone into decline. At
least one good book is no longer a necessary requirement to be a
professor. Neither is dedication to teaching. Jobs in the university
depend on connections. Networking, to use a term very common in Ivy
League campuses, is a common practice in the academic job market.
Nobody, except a complete idealist, objects to this since the grapevine
is the first place where one hears of talents. But in Calcutta, things
are a little different. The connections of a candidate should be in the
headquarters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Alimuddin
Street and not within the groves of academia. "Jobs for the comrades"
has replaced the simple criterion of merit.
There is a general recognition that dedication to teaching is considered
something that has become non-existent except among a handful of people.
To counter this, it has been proposed that there should be a code of
conduct for teachers which will stop them from playing truant. Quite
apart from the fact such a code already exists in the guidelines laid
down by the University Grants Commission, such a proposal skirts a
number of important issues.
The most important of these is that it avoids the question of quality of
teaching. A code of conduct of the kind that is being envisaged might
be able to guarantee that teachers go to their classes regularly But
will it be able to ensure that teachers are not dishing out substandard
stuff to their students? There are teachers - and there are reasons to
believe that they are the majority in certain subjects - who, even at
the postgraduate level, dictate from prepared notes in the name of
lecturing. The notes are always, of course, many many years old,
probably prepared when the teacher was himself a student. There is
another group who are regular in their attendance but take pride in
going to their classes unprepared and to teach from what they had read
and learnt many years ago. Their contempt for their students is matched
only by their intellectual dishonesty Teaching has ceased to be a
learning process.
The solution does not lie in a meaningless code of conduct. The first
step should be to stop tenurial appointments. Permanency should not be
a matter of right but should be related to performance and production.
A teacher's research and teaching can both be assessed after three or
five years before deciding on his promotion or permanency. This system
works, and works rather well elsewhere in the world. There is no reason
why it should not work here. Except that Juvenal's famous question
about "Who guards the guards?" has to be borne in mind. In a situation
where politics has vitiated every single sphere of academics, there are
reasons to apprehend that any process of assessment will be contaminated
by political interference.
Another area which has suddenly drawn the attention of "reformers" of
the University of Calcutta is the setting of question papers. It has
dawned on these Rip Van Winkles that students of the university at all
levels study certain suggestions and hardly ever the entire syllabus.
The solution suggested to this state of affairs is somewhat unique. It
has been proposed that a question bank should be set up. Additions will
be made regularly to this bank and all questions will be set from this
bank. It is not clear from this proposal what problems it will solve.
But the very mooting of this proposal is an admission that something is
rotten in the system of paper setting and moderation. Just as teachers
deliver the same lectures year in and year out, so do they set the same
questions. It is taken for granted by students that the questions which
have been set this year will not be set again the next year but will
reappear the year after. Success in examinations becomes a function of
intelligent guesswork. This practice is easily removed if teachers take
paper setting and moderation seriously. A question bank only opens up
new avenues of dishonesty. If honest and hardworking paper setters are
genuinely scarce, then there is no guarantee that a question bank,
however defined, will be a panacea for a some of the prevailing evils in
the system of examination.
One reason why question setting and moderation are not taken seriously
is the pressure, albeit never direct, that exists against setting
"stiff" papers. The success of the system depends on the number of
students who pass. There are so many graduates from the University of
Calcutta that at the postgraduate level in some departments, teaching
has to be carried out in two sections with more than a hundred students
in each. This inevitably affects the quality of teaching and the morale
of the most dedicated of teachers. Easy questions and a high proportion
of successful candidates, who are encouraged to go on to do an advanced
degree, are ways of keeping control over the number of unemployed and to
fill the ranks of the Students' Federation of India.
Political interference and decline of standards are related and part of
the reality of the University of Calcutta and the larger academic scene
of West Bengal. But it would be unfair not to place the absence of good
teachers on a broader canvas. Teaching is no longer a profession that is
respected. One reason for this is that it is poorly paid. As a result,
the best minds often do not opt to come into academics - or at nay rate
not into the university system as it exists today. Even in this respect,
the University Calcutta is the worst hit, especially in the sciences
where the syllabi and equipment are outdated by above two decades. Lack
of funds and bad management of the funds that are available have led to
progressive deterioration.
The handful of able and committed teachers who are in the university
find the atmosphere stifling and their work constantly hindered. The
ambience is inimical to new idea and innovation. Changing a syllabus can
be an uphill battle in the University of Calcutta. All this is
compounded by a myopic political leadership which is relentless in its
interference. Its attitude is exemplified by the following story.
A very powerful figure in Alimuddin Street was once asked by a well
meaning former communist to take steps to invite distinguished Bengali
academics, like Amartya Sen, to come and lecture at the University of
Calcutta. He was told that the CPI(M) has enough comrades of the calibre
of Sen to do the job. Before any reform, the University of Calcutta
needs to be rescued from the clutches of Alimuddin Street.
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