Academicians insist on quality education

Updated on: Monday, April 30, 2012

In a rare event, well-known academicians from the state gathered to discuss the current education system in India. From incumbent and former vice-chancellors to teachers were part of a seminar titled "Quality Education" organized on Sunday in the city.

Rajan Vellurkar, VC of Mumbai University, said, "Enhancing quality is a process and one needs to understand it properly. Expansion of current facilities, inclusion of more topics in syllabus and excellence are important for enhancing quality education."

But all these aspects which lead to quality education must be a simultaneous process, feels Ved Prakash Mishra, pro-chancellor of Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences. "You cannot have quality without a holistic approach. An institute cannot focus on laboratory in the first year, then faculty the next-this segmentation approach does not work. In medical sciences, 14 per cent of the world's undergraduate and 16 per cent of postgraduate seats are in India making us the repository for trained manpower. But if the manpower is of bad quality, we would fail," said Mishra.

He added that while Right To Education Act is good, what India needs is a 'right to quality education'.

But it is not only at the higher education level where things need to be addressed, feels Vidarbha's first female VC Kamal Singh. "It is imperative that we introduce quality education at the primary level in schools. Also while imparting education the aspect of moral values and ethics should be given paramount importance. The syllabus which is used in both schools and colleges should not be in terms of quantity alone, but quality as well," said Singh.

SN Pathan, former VC of Nagpur University, said, "We must not forget that whatever education we provide must ultimately be useful to students, our society and nation. The current framework of education needs to be changed and replaced on the basis of our cultural heritage."

Upgrading and improving constantly is the key to success, opined Pankaj Chande, VC of Kalidas University. "Quality is a relative term and yesterday's quality withers away today. Scholars need to continuously update their knowledge for achieving better results for the benefit of our education system," said Chande.

Dev Raj Vij, international president, Council for Teachers, said, "Quality education could be ensured only with whole hearted support of teachers as they play a very important role in the entire set-up. We also have to understand that in this globalized era quality education has become survival issue."

The seminar was organized by city-based Central India Group of Institutions in collaboration with Choice Institute of Management Studies & Research, Pune.

Academicians insist on quality education

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