DU and the four year degree course : Reform hands on education
- Sangai Express Editorial :: June 13, 2013 -

It is a package in itself. An education package, sort of, that is.

The four year undergraduate course offered by Delhi University has takers and non-takers, given the heated debate it has generated.

However going by the number of admission forms that have been sold, which may be read as the number of students lining up to get admission into one of the colleges under the university, it has to be admitted that many have viewed the new format beyond the number of years it would take to graduate.

A significant indicator that despite the nay sayers, there are numerous students, parents and guardians who are ready to trust the decision of the men and women who run the affairs of one of the top universities in the country.

This is refreshing and encouraging at the same time. That it is not merely a question of the years that it would take to graduate can be seen from the manner in which the four year course has been packaged.

The novelty lies in the flexibility and the array of choices made available to the students.

Despite some confusion, broadly, what the four year undergraduate degree course offers to the students is the option of leaving after completing two years with a diploma with the choice to return again.

Students can also wrap it up at the end of three years but that would just be a Bachelor’s degree without the honours.

It is the final year, that is the fourth year where the focus will be on the major, that is the honours paper.

How fruitful such a measure will be in tapping human resources remains to be seen, but reforms in the educational structure is something which the country perhaps needs the most now.

The important rider however is, reforms should not end up or sound like a misadventure. Half baked experiments should have no place in the world of education or the academia.

To the credit of the Government, it did not interfere nor took sides in the debate triggered by the decision of Delhi University to go in for the four year degree course.

This is the line of thought articulated effectively by the Union Minister of State of Human Resources Development, Shashi Tharoor in an article in The Hindu and which was reproduced in The Sangai Express sometime back.

Let the people, the educationists and the academicians debate over the matter and let them use their judgement on a turf which is strictly theirs, was the argument put forward by Tharoor, an alumni of Delhi University.

This again is a refreshing change, a change from the culture where political leaders and bureaucrats are known to tread into territories which should otherwise be strictly off limits for them.

Again as Mr Tharoor argued, education remains the last bastion which has not been touched by the reforms that have been sweeping across the country since the early part of the 90s.

This could be interpreted as stating that it makes absolutely no sense in reforming the economy and even governance if the education sector continues to be caught in a time warp.

An emerging economy and a country with vast human resources, that is what India is known to the world today.

Juxtapose this with the fact that despite the strides made after the economic reforms was kick started, not a single Indian university figures in the top 200 universities across the world and hereby hangs a tale.

Not something to gloss over. Perhaps it is also time for Manipur University to come up with some revolutionary steps that would reform the education sector in the State.

Again, perhaps this may be the time to drill home the point that a university is not only about concrete buildings but about developing the mental and physical aspects of the students.

How much has Manipur University travelled along this route after it became a Central University some years back is a question worth pondering over.