digitalLEARNING-Dec-2010-[16-18]-Cubicalisation of Knowledge Hampers Creativity-Prof Yash Pal

Interview

“Cubicalisation of Knowledge Hampers Creativity�

A Physicist by training and educationalist by passion, Prof Yash Pal has served as distinguished space scientist with |SRO and also as the Secretary with the Department of Science and Technology. This former Chairman of UGC, is also the first Chairperson of the New Delhi-based Modern School and a recipient of the Padma Bhushan. In an interaction with Dr Ravi Gupta and Sheena Joseph, the man who has been steering the higher education reforms in the country talks about the current educational systems and what the country should do for driving innovations in India. Excerpt: 16

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Innovations happen only when people work together. Universities should promote in-house research and creativity and should not limit their actions to importing a few scientific equipments and ideas from Abroad ties but departments within universities should also become more autonomous.

Universities are free to collaborate with each other and with other research institutions and industries in order to share resources and promote knowledge sharing.

Innovations happen only when many people work together. Universities should not limit their actions to importing a few scientific equipments from abroad. It should promote inhouse research and creativity and not be limited to importing foreign ideas.

What are your ideas of promoting innovations in Indian education?

Innovations have to grow in universities. Innovations cannot be sown by building infrastructure or by the use of high tech gadgets. It can come only from the beginning of a deep rooted understanding of scientific concepts and a sense of curiosity.

Curiosity and freedom should be inculcated among students so that they learn and do what they naturally want to do.

The first step in innovations is to make universities completely autonomous, so that students can pursue research on topics which they themselves choose and, in case the resources are inadequate, can seek resources from other universities. Not only universi-

With information and knowledge being available everywhere for students, especially through the media, how do you see its impact on education?

It is true that in today’s time, distance communication and use of the internet is very crucial but if it completely eliminates the intimacy and engagement in learning, it becomes counter -productive.

A mix of both face-to-face and distance learning has to be achieved. Proximate should not be killed. A lot of innovations have occurred with proximate and distance learning working together.

We should use internet not for studying things that is already available in books. But in positively subverting education in such a way that its dimensionality increases, and promotes the discovery of new things and enables moving in different directions. Technology is what makes things look attractive and eyecatching, but it has to be used wisely.

Science can be learnt well through observations and experiments. In addition if it completely eliminates the intimacy, then it proves to be counterproductive. I have always mentioned that Science can be learnt only from

observation and experiments. The rest is memory and not learning. The objective of school programmes should be to help children realise that there is science everywhere, be in the kitchen, the open sky, in bicycles, bullock carts, flying birds, trees, winds… if all our children start thinking like this, then probably people living in the country side would have bigger experimental laboratories than those living in the cities .

The inherent purpose of this is to help create new ways of thinking and nurturing young minds towards creativity and experimentation.

Do you think creativity has been promoted in school education system?

The National Curriculum Framework which came into existence in 2005 was a major exercise in reforming school education. It said that knowledge is not something that cannot be delivered.

True knowledge is that which is created by each person. It means that a learner has to be an activist and he will have to build knowledge through interaction and use of internet, books, and other mediums. The complexion and portrait of knowledge is different for different children and that is how it is supposed to be. Creativity gets destroyed if it gets mixed with the routine examination system.

Imaginative thinking gets constricted through the abundance of coaching classes. Tutoring centres are the most creativity destroying institutions. They might churn out so called ‘clever minds’ who achieve distinction in their subjects, but ingenious ideas get bottled up in the process. I think there is some kind of collusion between the examination administrators and coaching institutes!

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DECEMBER 2010

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\\ Interview

The objective of school programmes should be to help children realise that there is science everywhere ‌ if all our children start thinking like this, then probably people living in the countryside would have bigger experimental laboratories than those living in the cities You are an active supporter of inter-disciplinary studies. Could you elaborate on this?

While learning there should be an enormous amount of traffic between various disciplines. If knowledge is strictly compartmentalised between disciplines in such a way that there are steel walls between them, then there won’t be any innovation. Cubicalisation of knowledge hampers creativity.

You should be able to go across different streams and study diverse subjects. New concepts emerge in the boundaries of each discipline and therefore, demarcating lines between different disciplines have to be porous. All innovations in ideas and technologies have come about because of the mingling of inter disciplinary knowledge.

Indian Universities do not figure among the top universities of the world. How do you think quality can be promoted in higher education?

Universities in India might not be in the top 100, but that would not mean there are no bright minds in these universities. The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is among the finest universities, although it does not figure among the top 10 universities. I would also say that the Jadavpur University is also a wonderful place.

Universities should not restrict themselves to providing technical courses like engineering or biotechnology. These should also be space for an engineering student to take up subjects from humanities and linguistics. This would create a harmony among different subject domains, and also enable students to pursue their interest areas. Most of our industry research wings do not see the difference between creating technology and importing technology. These days it is easier to import technology than it was earlier. This impedes the creation and promotion of indigenous knowledge and talent.

Importing technology only creates things that already exist.

More encouragement should be given to creation and promotion of knowledge within the country.\\

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