Sunday, March 25, 2018

‘Rising disconnect between teachers, students a worry’

AICTE Chief Says Teachers Should Be Adequately Trained

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   25.03.2018

Chennai: There is a growing disconnect between teachers and students across institutions, and adequate training for educators is the need of the hour, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe has said.

Addressing students of Meenakshi College for Women during their convocation on Saturday, he said the bond between teachers and students had changed over the years. While punishment used to be seen as a chance for improvement by students earlier, today students stage protests against their professors even if they are reprimanded mildly. Besides, parents too don’t question students nowadays, he said.

The remarks of the AICTE boss about the change in student-teacher interaction assume significance as they come against the backdrop of Friday’s incident when a high school student in Veppampattu, around 37km west of Chennai, slashed the throat of his 60-year-old teacher for sacking him from tuitions.

Sahasrabudhe said there was a lack of involvement on the part of teachers too. “We come to the classrooms, deliver lectures and there is barely any interaction beyond the lecture. How many of us know all the students’ names in a classroom? The need of the hour is for our teachers to be well trained,” he said. Emphasising on an interactive atmosphere on educational campuses, he said the AICTE in the coming academic year will start a three-week induction programme in technical institutions during which there will be no classes and the focus will solely be on orientation and bonding sessions. “In every institute, there will be students coming from different backgrounds, from rural and city regions, Tamil and English medium, introverts and extroverts. Developing a strong bond is the starting point for students to feel comfortable with faculty members. If there is no bonding, the confidence level of students too goes down and they are unable to fit in. This is why induction programmes are necessary. I hope arts and science colleges too can replicate a similar model,” he said.

He also stressed on regular revision of curriculum for universities as per industry requirements with exposure to internships and experiential learning.

He also had a word of encouragement for the 1,094 women graduates who received their degrees on the occasion. “Women’s education is not just about empowerment but keeping in mind that one educated woman can change the entire family’s thinking.”

Stating that there was a need to keep recharging oneself to take up challenges, Sahasrabudhe cited examples of Lila Poonawalla, the first Indian woman to have secured a mechanical engineering degree, and Infosys foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy to show how they had fought against odds and came up trumps through commitment, passion and hard work.

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