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Inter-disciplinary boundaries decried

Prof. Yash Pal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A major negative in the present education system is the artificial boundaries that have been created between disciplines, former University Grants Commission chairman and noted educationist Yash Pal said on Monday.

He was delivering the first of the lecture series on education organised by the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), here.

The moment such artificial boundaries are created the real issues of life stop entering the education system. This is because nothing in life belongs to one discipline, he pointed out. The situation regarding the country’s education system has come to such a pass that the children firmly believe that there two kinds of knowledge; one that is gained from schools and the other from life. The children also believe that the two have nothing to do with each other Dr. Yash Pal said.

Once a person starts creating knowledge, he moves “out of the subject.” Knowledge does not respect subject boundaries, only information does. By asking the audience the question, “can man get to Mars in the next 10 years,” and by trying to answer the question Dr. Yash Pal demonstrated how the answer cannot be confined to one subject or discipline. Each new thought is generated tangentially from another.

“In fact going off on a tangent should be made compulsory than being avoided altogether. Knowledge is all about going off on a tangent. Lateral thinking is very important for creation of knowledge,” he argued.

At the base India is a great learning society; only, the educated people do not recognise the learning — the metal workers, the craftsmen, the weavers… those who work with their hands. We have permanently separated those who teach themselves from those who are ‘educated’ and we call the former ‘uneducated.’ “This is why we do not have that many inventors… Often IIT engineers cannot fix a fuse or the puncture on a bicycle,” he pointed out.

Minister for Education M.A. Baby presided over the programme.

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