‘Teaching-learning process leaves much to be desired'

FOR COIMBATORE 18/03/2010: E. Balagurusamy, Member Union Public Service Commission, speaking at a national seminar on 'Quality Enhancement in Higher Education', organised in Coimbatore on Thursday at Avinashilingam University for Women. Photo:S. Siva Saravanan

“There is something seriously wrong with our teaching-learning process. Information is dumped into students, who forget the same after examination,” Member, Union Public Service Commission, E. Balagurusamy, lamented here on Thursday.

Instead, students should be made to use their hand and heart so that they did not forget what they learnt, he said at the national seminar on ‘Quality Enhancement in Higher Education', organised by Avinashilingam University for Women.

Education should help a person know how to make a living and understand how to live, How to make a living involved two things – knowledge and skills, which students should get through education.

Sadly, the present system concentrated more on knowledge at the cost of skills. Likewise, how to live was all about values, which again had very little place in our education system.

Employment

If the two were taught to students then there was no need to worry about employment, placement or other aspects as things would fall in place. That, however, was not the case today as many civil engineers did not even know how to repair cracks on walls and mechanical engineers unable to repair scooters or cars.

Everybody talked about quality in higher education without a clue as to what it was all about. “It is very difficult to define – is it about marks or job or discipline or number of students admitted?”

Unlike products that had parameters to define quality, it was difficult to determine quality in education, he said and asked without defining quality how was it possible to enhance, assure and sustain the same.

He suggested changes in curriculum so as to meet the expectations of society and industry, improvement in quality of faculty in such a manner that people chosen to teach had competence, commitment and character, better infrastructure and good governance to improve higher education.

Chancellor, Avinashilingam University for Women, T.K. Shanmuganandam, said quality played an important role in higher education. The quality of education was directly proportional to the quality of teachers. Dean, Faculty of Home Science, G. Krishna Bai welcomed the gathering.

Dean, Faculty of Science, R. Parvatham proposed a vote of thanks. Vice-Chancellor Saroja Prabhakaran was present on the occasion.