Retrospect, Savadatti tells teachers

Delivering the Foundation Day lecture on “Higher education: Where are we going?” at Mangalore University here on Tuesday, he said universities should become centre of storing knowledge, transmitting knowledge and creation of knowledge.

He said fragmenting the courses and creating separate universities does not serve any purpose of a university. As a result, the core knowledge of university is shrinking.
“We need best teachers who can teach at the lower level. A junior teacher is asked to teach the freshers. A senior teacher teaches final year students. This should be changed and become vice-versa.”

Universities are struck up with affiliations system, examination system. Nobody seems to have looked at the higher education system in a holistic and comprehensive way, he added.

Need of hour
The need of the hour to improve higher education is “a government which does not interfere in the education system instead it supports the higher education; teachers who are committed; students who are interested in the process of learning and parents who allow their children to chose the subject of their choice.
Though teaching is the most demanding job in today’s world, many do not come for teaching, he observed.

Prof Savadatti said “there is a need to attract best students to higher education. We do not appoint competent teachers but appoint qualified people. The competency is totally forgotten while recruiting. We need good students, teachers for creating a ‘brand name’ for the institutions. Various reports submitted by various commissions and committees on the reforms in education system is excellent. However, how are we going to implement and who are we going to implement is a question.”

Instead of setting up more educational institutions, there is a need to strengthen the existing institutions and make them better institutions, he added.
In his presidential address, Vice-Chancellor Prof K M Kaveriappa said universities have become churning centres of graduates. In the process, research is forgotten. With the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, the world began searching for talented. “Excellence can not be created. It should evolve,” he said.
DH News Service