So this article has been doing the rounds on facebook, and I understand that in the light of recent happenings across colleges in India, it offers up some thoughtful criticism of the state of education today. My point is not to counter everything said, but a particular ideal that I feel permeates the article and Liberal Arts colleges at large at every level of organisation.
The thing is, and although I'm certain the authoress understands education far better than I do, that in a way, it does justify a sort of ivory tower attitude towards what education should be and I disagree. It rests upon an assumption of free-thinking, that does not really exist, since the kind of culture being valorized is in itself, extremely normative despite its disregard for attendance criteria etc.
One of the things that keeps popping up in labellings of the university system as pandering to 'GDP growth' or driven 'market economic' logic is how certain things like MoUs with the industrial sector or a more job-oriented approach being somehow harmful to the intellectual climate of our Arts and Sciences colleges(hereafter, referred to as A&S colleges). This I believe, is somehow misguided and persistence of such an attitude may well be detrimental and counterproductive to the state of education today.
The first thing is that it is my personal belief that the purpose of the education system is to create socially responsible individuals who can potentially contribute to society either intellectually, economically or culturally by virtue of giving them scope to maximise the functioning of their capabilities. This is not to say that socially responsible individuals should pander to the status quo, but that to challenge such ideals requires a connection with greater society at large. The role of public intellectuals is not to sit within ivory towers and sermonise over cups of coffee and cigarettes(although I could very validly be accused of the same here), but to engage with this and such a role is profoundly political. That is one of the most important reasons for the existence of student politics, independent or otherwise. To that end, I find a normative discourse such as 'universities are supposed to produce scholars, not workers' unfortunate.
The trend has been to valorise scholasticism and ivory tower intellectualism while decrying engagement with industries or business as against a particular 'academic culture', or in a somewhat more paranoid manner, as an insidious attempt at privatising the public sector(the fear of which, while not baseless on a general scale, but is misplaced here). I quote this particular passage from the piece I mentioned at the beginning:
I cannot speak for the humanities point of view(although I am certain a section of them might agree with me), but as a student of science and considering that science students form the majority of the student community in most A&S colleges while remaining a minority in the cultural discourse, let me say a few things:
The applied sciences cannot get by without cooperating with industry or exposing their students to such an environment anyway. How on Earth are you supposed to conduct advanced computational research in atmospheric sciences, the understanding of which is essential to understanding climate change, without supercomputers? And concentrating resources in certain thrust areas in applied science will automatically lead to complaints from people involved elsewhere regarding bias and being ignored as far as funding goes. How is such research supposed to take place without tying up with private agencies? Any institution seeking to fulfill its potential in the sciences should encourage cooperation with the industrial sector instead of shunning it. Else, there is a severe risk that they will be left behind in the dust.
To return to what I was saying earlier, universities should ideally encourage people to expand upon their capabilities and people should realise that academia may not be everyone's cup of tea. Surely, if someone is talented in that respect and does not recognize it, he/she should be shown that they can fulfill their potential in that regard, but that's not a general thing. There are people, across departmental barriers, whose talents lie elsewhere, in the corporate sector, in the Government, in industry and otherwise, and the dominant culture would do well to take note of that and encourage these too, instead of normatively passing judgement on them. This isn't really 'market-oriented rhetoric' or 'GDP growth fetishism'. Not everyone wants to study for the 'heck of it' and they shouldn't be culturally encouraged to do so, ignoring their personal and general social realities. The pursuit of an abstract idea of excellence that almost every university and college aspires to as a whole, depends on this.
It needs to be remembered that a vast majority of people coming to A&S colleges, come to such places in the hopes of getting a job eventually and I see no reason to 'correct' such a view because that is contingent on their social realities. One shouldn't forget that a large percentage of people in these colleges ultimately end up in the private sector anyway, and that a dominant culture of deriding such attitudes only contributes to some of them not being able to maximise the functioning of their capabilities and creates a confusion with regards to their own understanding of fulfilling their capabilities. And this does happen, with people who come to certain departments wanting to eventually get into a more 'professional' sector, but thanks to the idealism, start believing academia is right for them, before realising it isn't and missing out on valuable internships etc. that they could have pursued at the time.
Tie-ups with private sector industries are not a foreshadowing of eventual fees hikes and privatisation of a particular university. It's not encroaching on any place where the public sector is active, but filling a niche where the public sector is not active. This is plain alarmism and revoking such agreements will end up harming students whose inclinations lie in that direction and rob them of a chance at a well-paying job.
It should be realised that those who join industries with high-paying jobs do end up contributing to society economically and ensure a secure future for themselves and their families. It also needs to be remembered that while you and I do not want or need luxuries in life, there are some who do, and they shouldn't be discouraged from pursuing any course of action that would make them happy, unless it involves harm to anyone else.
Thinking of engineers and workers as machinistic and unimaginative or snarking at people desiring a cushy well-paying job at a private company, is matched by the attitude that perceives Professors of Literary criticism as people freeloading off the State. Neither attitude is particularly healthy and both are counterproductive to an academic culture.
Others may point out that such a culture is specific to the humanities disciplines such as Literature and History, and not the sciences and economics, and truly, I know nothing about the necessary 'cultures for success' in those areas. However, that raises questions regarding whether or not such normativity is necessary or beneficial in the larger context where there are departments of sciences too.
Neither has such an environment in the country's top colleges helped encourage major political movements beyond the scope of campuses. Very few academics in such universities are involved with framing political policy or actively involved in thinking about how to solve problems of society beyond the occaissional activism to ease one's conscience, and criticising market economics from one's armchair(usually without looking at a single book on economics). The ivory tower excesses coupled with college-centric idealism often causes myopia in the political visions of its adherents.
The fact is, one cannot divorce political activism from society. Disassociating academic spaces from society at large only serve a purpose of greater depoliticization that is not necessarily dependent on the existence of campus politics. A student from JU might find an IIT or a National Law College to be apolitical by her standards, but we're seeing a time when graduates from such institutes are becoming far more politically active(both on the left and the right) than an average graduate from an A&C college and this should not come as a surprise anymore.
The lesson that these colleges 'teach' apparently, regarding a culture that eschews 'cushiony job placements' is a recent phenomenon as I had mentioned earlier(perhaps post-Naxal era?), or at least, indications of where people end up demonstrate so. This is not a culture intrinsic to the fabric of A&S colleges and is something that needs to change with time. The neo-Brahmanical chauvinism needs to end and give way to a more pluralistic culture, one that encourages fulfilling capabilities and not an imposition or valorization of a certain scholarly ideal.
The thing is, and although I'm certain the authoress understands education far better than I do, that in a way, it does justify a sort of ivory tower attitude towards what education should be and I disagree. It rests upon an assumption of free-thinking, that does not really exist, since the kind of culture being valorized is in itself, extremely normative despite its disregard for attendance criteria etc.
One of the things that keeps popping up in labellings of the university system as pandering to 'GDP growth' or driven 'market economic' logic is how certain things like MoUs with the industrial sector or a more job-oriented approach being somehow harmful to the intellectual climate of our Arts and Sciences colleges(hereafter, referred to as A&S colleges). This I believe, is somehow misguided and persistence of such an attitude may well be detrimental and counterproductive to the state of education today.
The first thing is that it is my personal belief that the purpose of the education system is to create socially responsible individuals who can potentially contribute to society either intellectually, economically or culturally by virtue of giving them scope to maximise the functioning of their capabilities. This is not to say that socially responsible individuals should pander to the status quo, but that to challenge such ideals requires a connection with greater society at large. The role of public intellectuals is not to sit within ivory towers and sermonise over cups of coffee and cigarettes(although I could very validly be accused of the same here), but to engage with this and such a role is profoundly political. That is one of the most important reasons for the existence of student politics, independent or otherwise. To that end, I find a normative discourse such as 'universities are supposed to produce scholars, not workers' unfortunate.
The trend has been to valorise scholasticism and ivory tower intellectualism while decrying engagement with industries or business as against a particular 'academic culture', or in a somewhat more paranoid manner, as an insidious attempt at privatising the public sector(the fear of which, while not baseless on a general scale, but is misplaced here). I quote this particular passage from the piece I mentioned at the beginning:
"This is what has always distinguished the public universities and colleges in the country from the IITs and IIMs and the professional law schools – that they have guarded and nurtured fiercely a certain romanticism about academics neither wisely nor too well. This bit of idealism is neither irrational nor lazy. Far from it: it is this spark that lays the foundation of thinking and doing big. It makes one argue, innovate and dream up fundamental changes in academia – not make hack-writers and technicians out of fine minds and generous souls."This is not a singular instance of a person railing about how A&S colleges are intellectually superior to technical institutes, but a widespread chauvinism at every level in A&S colleges that indulges in chest-thumping regarding academic purity and the fact that such colleges are not 'nerd factories' and discourage people from becoming 'good little worker bees'.
I cannot speak for the humanities point of view(although I am certain a section of them might agree with me), but as a student of science and considering that science students form the majority of the student community in most A&S colleges while remaining a minority in the cultural discourse, let me say a few things:
- The majority of academicians in any field aren't innovators or revolutionary paradigm-shifters, but the equivalent of what the writer of the article derides as 'hack-writers and technicians'. She misses out that such 'hacks' and 'technicians' are the backbone of the academic community, and it is due to the sum of their relatively smaller contributions to their fields that the innovators can often come up with 'big-bang' discoveries etc. There's nothing wrong with being a 'run-of-the-mill' nerd, although most of us still want to achieve greatness in some way or another.
- With innovators and game-changers, there is no 'formula' to producing or laying the foundations for such people. Given the rarity of such individuals there's hardly any point in waiting for 'academic Messiahs'. Furthermore, it is often true, especially in the sciences, that such Messiahs displayed attitudes that are derided as being in common with 'hack writers and technicians'.
- At least in the present context of India, a lot of the truly 'world-class' scientists have backgrounds in more technical and 'job-oriented' universities. Ashoke Sen, Shiraz Minwalla, Rajesh Gopakumar in theoretical physics, K.H. Paranjape and Mahan Mj in geometry, Subhash Khot and Manindra Agarwal in theoretical computer science(I could add to that list and it would go on), have backgrounds in technical universities.
- Some may raise a counterpoint regarding Satyen Bose and Meghnad Saha being students of Presidency, and they'd do well to remember that in those days, Presidency was indeed a machine, producing workers for the purpose of the British Raj. The environment was quite 'market-oriented', in a manner of speaking.
- Economics departments across the country have produced leading academics on a regular basis, and in A&S colleges, they've been the least committed to intellectual purism, encouraging students to engage with industry etc. An ivory tower attitude never really helped in economics, but that's the nature of the subject.
The applied sciences cannot get by without cooperating with industry or exposing their students to such an environment anyway. How on Earth are you supposed to conduct advanced computational research in atmospheric sciences, the understanding of which is essential to understanding climate change, without supercomputers? And concentrating resources in certain thrust areas in applied science will automatically lead to complaints from people involved elsewhere regarding bias and being ignored as far as funding goes. How is such research supposed to take place without tying up with private agencies? Any institution seeking to fulfill its potential in the sciences should encourage cooperation with the industrial sector instead of shunning it. Else, there is a severe risk that they will be left behind in the dust.
To return to what I was saying earlier, universities should ideally encourage people to expand upon their capabilities and people should realise that academia may not be everyone's cup of tea. Surely, if someone is talented in that respect and does not recognize it, he/she should be shown that they can fulfill their potential in that regard, but that's not a general thing. There are people, across departmental barriers, whose talents lie elsewhere, in the corporate sector, in the Government, in industry and otherwise, and the dominant culture would do well to take note of that and encourage these too, instead of normatively passing judgement on them. This isn't really 'market-oriented rhetoric' or 'GDP growth fetishism'. Not everyone wants to study for the 'heck of it' and they shouldn't be culturally encouraged to do so, ignoring their personal and general social realities. The pursuit of an abstract idea of excellence that almost every university and college aspires to as a whole, depends on this.
It needs to be remembered that a vast majority of people coming to A&S colleges, come to such places in the hopes of getting a job eventually and I see no reason to 'correct' such a view because that is contingent on their social realities. One shouldn't forget that a large percentage of people in these colleges ultimately end up in the private sector anyway, and that a dominant culture of deriding such attitudes only contributes to some of them not being able to maximise the functioning of their capabilities and creates a confusion with regards to their own understanding of fulfilling their capabilities. And this does happen, with people who come to certain departments wanting to eventually get into a more 'professional' sector, but thanks to the idealism, start believing academia is right for them, before realising it isn't and missing out on valuable internships etc. that they could have pursued at the time.
Tie-ups with private sector industries are not a foreshadowing of eventual fees hikes and privatisation of a particular university. It's not encroaching on any place where the public sector is active, but filling a niche where the public sector is not active. This is plain alarmism and revoking such agreements will end up harming students whose inclinations lie in that direction and rob them of a chance at a well-paying job.
It should be realised that those who join industries with high-paying jobs do end up contributing to society economically and ensure a secure future for themselves and their families. It also needs to be remembered that while you and I do not want or need luxuries in life, there are some who do, and they shouldn't be discouraged from pursuing any course of action that would make them happy, unless it involves harm to anyone else.
Thinking of engineers and workers as machinistic and unimaginative or snarking at people desiring a cushy well-paying job at a private company, is matched by the attitude that perceives Professors of Literary criticism as people freeloading off the State. Neither attitude is particularly healthy and both are counterproductive to an academic culture.
Others may point out that such a culture is specific to the humanities disciplines such as Literature and History, and not the sciences and economics, and truly, I know nothing about the necessary 'cultures for success' in those areas. However, that raises questions regarding whether or not such normativity is necessary or beneficial in the larger context where there are departments of sciences too.
Neither has such an environment in the country's top colleges helped encourage major political movements beyond the scope of campuses. Very few academics in such universities are involved with framing political policy or actively involved in thinking about how to solve problems of society beyond the occaissional activism to ease one's conscience, and criticising market economics from one's armchair(usually without looking at a single book on economics). The ivory tower excesses coupled with college-centric idealism often causes myopia in the political visions of its adherents.
The fact is, one cannot divorce political activism from society. Disassociating academic spaces from society at large only serve a purpose of greater depoliticization that is not necessarily dependent on the existence of campus politics. A student from JU might find an IIT or a National Law College to be apolitical by her standards, but we're seeing a time when graduates from such institutes are becoming far more politically active(both on the left and the right) than an average graduate from an A&C college and this should not come as a surprise anymore.
The lesson that these colleges 'teach' apparently, regarding a culture that eschews 'cushiony job placements' is a recent phenomenon as I had mentioned earlier(perhaps post-Naxal era?), or at least, indications of where people end up demonstrate so. This is not a culture intrinsic to the fabric of A&S colleges and is something that needs to change with time. The neo-Brahmanical chauvinism needs to end and give way to a more pluralistic culture, one that encourages fulfilling capabilities and not an imposition or valorization of a certain scholarly ideal.
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