Former University Grants Commission Vice-Chairman V.N. Rajasekhara Pillai has said that education should impart globally transferable skills to students.
Inaugurating the annual debate programme of the Sree Narayana College on the college campus at Thottada here on Monday, Dr. Pillai, who is now Principal Secretary to the Department of Science and Technology of the State government, said that any plan to restructure the education sector should take into account the knowledge and skill required in the country and abroad. Technology intervention in schools and colleges was very important, he said adding that technology should be seen just as a tool for education. “Technology cannot teach, only teachers can teach,” he noted.
Stressing the importance of empowering teachers with technology, Dr. Pillai said that discipline-based ICT (Information and Communication Technology) pedagogy in each academic subject was required for developing a critical mass in the education sector. He also said that the linkages between teaching and research had to be institutionalised. Today those who were offered facilities for conducting researches were not largely involved in undergraduate (UG) level teaching and the teachers involved in the UG level teaching were not able to do researches, he observed.
Stating that increased access to education was vital for any society, Dr. Pillai said that academic success was also important. Irrelevant access was worse than denial of success, he said adding that educated unemployment created its own problems. There should be connection between what was being taught and its social relevance. The correlation between text and context was nothing but social relevance of education, he pointed out. Knowledge and skills were for social progress, Dr. Pillai said emphasising that any restructuring of education should take into account its social and historical backgrounds. Each educational institution had its own academic, social and historical contexts, he stated.
The quality of education in an educational institution was linked with self-evaluation of its own academic activities. External agencies could only provide a framework. No external agency could control the performance of a teacher as the quality depended on continuous academic interaction between students and teachers in an institution, he underlined. Terming teaching as the most autonomous profession, he said that syllabus was only a framework for the teacher. The teacher could adopt any means to teach his or her subject, he said adding that self-assessment report being prepared by every institution was just a mirror.
College Principal K.N. Kamalasanan presided. College faculty members N. Sajan and C.P. Sreenath and Arayakkandy Santhosh representing the college management were among those present at the function.
