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Foreword
In
recent years the Academy has felt increasingly concerned with
the state of university education in science in the country.
It has been widely realized that without a proper base in
education it will not be possible to promote progress in science
to attain the excellence that is a major concern of the Academy.
Reflecting this concern, Council decided at its meeting on
30 July 1994 that an Academy Paper should be prepared, setting
out Council's views on the problems of education in science
in India as well as spelling out the action that can be taken
by the Academy and various other agencies in the country.
An Academy Panel was therefore constituted in July 1994, with
Prof. N. Mukunda. FASc, as Chairman, to prepare a draft of
the Academy paper on the subject. The Panel wrote to all Fellows
seeking their views on the question, and many who were in
Bangalore joined the open meeting held by the Panel on 16
August 1994. The inputs from the Fellowship have been valuable
to the Panel in drafting its report. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank Professor Mukunda and his distinguished
colleagues on the Panel for the extraordinary effort they
have put into the preparation of a report that I am now happy
to place before the Academy's Fellowship, the Government and
the public for their consideration. Although numerous reports
have been prepared on education in the country, and some by
very distinguished academics, I hope it will be seen that
the Academy has made a departure in several ways, in particular
by setting out a course of action for itself.
I
expect that this will be the first of a series of studies
by the Academy on policy issues concerning science and technology
in the country. By its very nature it is unlikely that a document
of this type will have the unanimous approval of all Fellows
of the Academy, but the procedure we have adopted ensures
that the report now being released by the Council represents
the views of the vast majority of the Fellowship. R. Narasimha
President.
UNIVERSITY
EDUCATION IN SCIENCE
1.
INTRODUCTION
Following
the expression of widespread concern on the state of university
education in science in the country, the Council of the Indian
Academy of Sciences decided that an Academy Paper should be
prepared on the subject. Accordingly, the President appointed
a Panel whose composition is shown in the Appendix. Its terms
of reference were:
1.
to assess the state of education in science in the country,
particularly at the undergraduate level; and
2.
to propose such measures as may be considered appropriate
to improve the quality of education in science through the
combined efforts of universities, higher institutes of learning,
government authorities, voluntary agencies and the Academy.
This
document is based on the report submitted by the Panel. In
preparation for its work, a half-day symposium on "University
Education in Science" was organized by the Panel on 16 August
1994 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In addition
to all Fellows resident in Bangalore, the faculty and students
of the Indian Institute of Science, Raman Research Institute,
Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and concerned faculty from
Bangalore University and selected colleges in Bangalore were
invited to the symposium. Four of the panel members presented,
half-hour papers on the four major science streams - V. G.
Bhide on physical sciences, A. Sitaram on mathematical sciences,
M. K. Chandrashekaran on life sciences, and B. M. Deb on chemical
sciences. There were also introductory remarks by the President,
R. Narasimha, and brief invited observations by C. N. R. Rao
and G. Padmanaban. Many Fellows present at the Symposium -
including M.V.Bhatt, S. K. Brahmachari, R. Cowsik, V. K. Gaur,
R. Narasimhan, J. Pasupathy, Phoolan Prasad, Raja Ramanna,
P. N. Shankar, B. V. Sreekantan and N. Viswanadham - as well
as Prof. S. Khatre of Bangalore University, contributed to
the discussions.
The
Panel met on 16 and 17 September 1994 for detailed discussions,
as well as on 27 September 1994 to finalize its report. The
Secretary of the Academy in a circular letter to all Fellows
informed them of the setting up of the Panel and invited them
to convey their views to it. Close to fifty responses from
Fellows were received, some containing suggestions relating
to specific subjects. All of these, and the comments made
during the symposium, have been taken into account in the
preparation of this Paper.
The
Paper is structured as follows: Section 2 recapitulates the
dimensions of the problem of science education in the country,
starting with a brief look at the school scene and then moving
on to the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at colleges
and universities. This Section also includes an account of
frequently expressed perceptions of the current scene in university
education in science. Section 3 reviews briefly some of the
suggestions that have been made earlier by various concerned
groups and agencies to tackle the problems set out in Section
2.
Section
4, in a sense the heart of this document, presents the views
of the Academy on various aspects of the question of university
education in science. Among the issues considered are the
following: the role of Government agencies; the functioning
of educational institutions; the contributions that national
laboratories and R and D institutions can make to science
education; patterns of curricula, flexible options for students,
teacher training, needs of different groups of students; and
urgently needed improvements in the teaching of particular
subjects. The relationship between the social goal of equity
and the academic one of recognising and supporting excellence
has also been addressed, and ways have been suggested for
a reorientation of the educational system by which these goals
can be seen as complementing each other.
The
recommendations are given in Section 5. They have been grouped
separately into those that involve major agencies and wings
of Government, and those where the Academy can take initiatives
on its own. Section 6 gives a brief summary of the major recommendations,
for quick and easy reference.
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