Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A pathetic education

The good quality education choices are limited for rural students to cope up good quality it also needs considerable time to understand the urban environment and the trend of the system to make concrete action.

Given the present situation in the higher education only option left with poor rural student is to encourage themselves and work hard to gain first hand knowledge on the subject. And aim for better employment opportunity.

Ashwini Deshpande writes that “There were two vacancies, and 19 applicants but it turned out that only seven had shown up. I was secretly relieved, as I suspect were my colleagues on the panel. Both the positions were “general category” slots, or as is often said, “open” positions.
But as the interviews proceeded, a feeling of despair started to engulf us. We asked them which area of economics they would like to be questioned on and then asked the easiest questions in the areas of their choice. As they struggled, we asked them if they had looked at the DU syllabus or had prepared at all for the interviews. The answer was a unanimous “no”. One of the candidates was a teacher in a coaching centre that prepared undergraduates for DU economics subjects and even she was equally clueless.

All the candidates had degrees from universities in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana. The first striking fact was that not even one person from the three universities in Delhi had chosen to apply for this job. So, the best post-graduates had moved elsewhere to better options. Second, none of the candidates thought it important to prepare for the interview or research the job requirements. Thirdly, all of them had qualified NET (the national eligibility test for teaching); one was NET qualified in economics and education. And yet, the unanimous view in the selection committee was that they had a long way to go before they became eligible as teachers. Perhaps, it is time to reconsider the utility of a test like the NET. Should it not be redesigned to reveal the information that it is supposed to, viz., that the candidate has a good enough understanding of the subject? However well designed, can a national, standardised test such as the NET reveal this information at all?”

But she is nowhere near to solution.

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