The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Survey to offer fresh insights into education

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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Survey to offer fresh insights into education

Staff Reporter

Higher education council mapping resources, infrastructure

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mapping of resources and infrastructure in the higher education sector by the Kerala State Higher Education Council will help to give parents, teachers and students — stakeholders in the sector — new insights, K.N. Panikkar, Vice-Chairman of the council, said here on Friday.

He was inaugurating a seminar organised by the council to explain the mapping process to teachers and students who will carry out the survey in institutions of higher learning in the State. The National Service Scheme (NSS) is collaborating with the council for the work.

He said most of what had been done on the higher education sector so far was more on the basis of conjecture than sound data. The State did not have complete information about its own universities, colleges, teachers and their interests and academic pursuits or the projects that they had. There was next to no data about the interests of the student population — what led them to choose a particular course, what their capabilities were and so on.

“The knowledge about the performance of the students in the academic sector was limited to the percentage of marks they scored in examinations,” Dr. Panikkar said.

“In short, we were groping in the dark as far as higher education was concerned. Most of the reforms came out of this uncertainty and most ideas were based on this lack of information.”

The higher education sector in the State, he said, needs urgent reforms. The method of education here should be compared with what is seen as the best in the world. For all these, there should first be a clear idea of what is there — “the status quo” — in this sector. The council initially got the information it can from universities and colleges directly. The second stage, in which the NSS activists figure, aims at a more extensive collection of data on institutions, teachers and students. This survey will give students a whole new perspective on higher education and sensitise them to issues in this sector. This is to be seen as the generation of social capital.

Since teachers are the lynchpins of the reforms to be introduced, he said, their involvement in the survey will help to make reforms more meaningful. Once the survey is over, the parents will be able to better guide their wards to choose courses and institutions.

He said the expansion of the higher education sector must be based on academic, social and human resource considerations.

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