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 | Higher Education: Path to Scientific, Economic Progress | | published on : 12-01-2015 | | Category : Higher Education | | Representational Pic
On my recent visit to Rutgers University in the United States of America to attend an international symposium, I reached to an intriguing conclusion of our social reality: the standard of graduate research in the U.S. is much higher than doctorate programs in India. This might seem a hyperbole to many and an oriental’s assertion but that’s what I felt after observing graduate students at work, their minds largely driven by passion for research and optimism of institutions toward extension in knowledge. Currently, a group of distinguished scientists from universities across the U.S. are undertaking a research on global warming and climate change in subzero temperatures of Greenland. In a project like this, it is young researchers who go out into the Greenland’s ice and collect samples for the investigation.
Education, needless to say, is the backbone of a country. It’s key to progress and development. What key is to a lock, research is to progress. In India, different stages of education include primary, secondary and higher education. When we talk of higher education, it includes colleges and universities.
I deduce all this to my own state, Jammu and Kashmir. An intellectually fertile state, J&K has produced students who have topped competitive exams like the IAS, IIM or AIIMS. When we look at other sectors, higher education is inarguably one of the most important and busy sectors hosting thousands of students for different courses in bachelors, masters and doctorate.
As is unfortunate to note, our higher education system at the moment is defined by the attendance of students in the classroom only. This needs to be supported with real-time research and garnering developmental concepts among students to embark on answering the larger questions.
For any university or college to flourish intellectually and scientifically, research is the key. Although universities to some extent are trying to pick up, the research and development concepts are not extended to our colleges. Concepts like these are absent in curriculum of colleges, although few colleges are undertaking research projects but their number is too low and embarrassing.
As many as 100 government colleges function in J&K with graduate and postgraduate students numbering thousands having faculty members from different fields of specialization. My proposition is that professors and assistant professors should apply for projects, the funding of which would directly give a boost to state higher education department, both financially as well scientifically.
We have hundreds of talented professors in every college and they need to think about this and create an atmosphere of research in their own institutions.This way they would also be able to provide financial assistance in the form of Jr. Research Fellows, Sr. Research Fellows and Research Associates to the educated and unemployed youth of the state. In addition to this, we need to expose our young graduates to the research activities at an earliest.
It is important to mention here that during the World War II, the U.S. government recognized significant contributions made by university and college research especially by scientists and engineers to their success in the war. Supporting basic research was considered to be an important element in strategies to promote and sustain economic growth. If our higher education has to remain alive and produce quality education and research, they have to keep research alive in their respective departments.
There are dozens of funding agencies like Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Centre of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), University Grants Commission (UGC), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and many more that give grants to different colleges and universities for undertaking research and developmental projects under Science and Engineering field. This is the job of professors to apply for projects and it is incumbent on government to show optimism towards research activities. Government must play a positive role in encouraging the professors at college level to write proposals and get them passed. If a professor remains successful in getting research projects funded, the government must smoothen the process of researcher, not complicate it for researchers and make it sure that the principal investigator remains in the same college till termination of the research projects.
If government acts as a conduit in this process, I believe our colleges will get boost increating laboratories and becoming a hotspot for research. It is for the college professors to begin their work. In order to compete at national and international level, it is fundamental that we prepare youngsters with research skills necessary to undertake studies: all this will end in scientific and economic growth.
Suggestions
a. Each professor should atleast write one project proposal to different funding agencies.
b. Graduate students should be given exposure to research.
c. Government should show flexibility towards professors undertaking projects sanctioned/operational by not hampering their work by transfers unless they complete the project. | | Related Keywords : | | higher education education nal |
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