Chancellor's office initiative to improve teaching-learning culture in Bihar
The chancellor’s office in Bihar has taken a novel initiative to bring about qualitative change in teaching in colleges and universities.
The chancellor’s office in Bihar has taken a novel initiative to bring about qualitative change in teaching in colleges and universities throughout the state.
It has constituted four different forums, which will suggest ways means to improve teaching-learning culture to make it more interesting and healthy. The move is aimed at checking falling classroom attendance.
The forums, authorised by the Raj Bhawan, will conduct workshops, seminars and refresher courses for teachers, organise educational visits, share knowledge on smooth conduct of practicals and motivate teachers. There will be four forums for four different streams – Science, Social Science, Humanities and Commerce.
The forums will consist of subject experts. Reputed retired teachers from Patna University and Magadh University Colleges based in Patna will also be part of the forums. Every university will later have regional centers. Based on the outcome of the forums, more such groups may be formed in other parts of the State.
Chancellor RS Gavai, while talking to HT, said that he had asked the government to provide sufficient funds for proper infrastructure development in colleges. "For the first time, the entire UGC teams came to Patna. The team of the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) also came to help the colleges. But for NAAC accreditation, the colleges must prepare themselves," he added.
The move to constitute forums is a sequel to the inspection of over 120 colleges by Krishna Kumar, OSD to the chancellor, in the last six months. "In most of the colleges, the teaching standards left a lot to be desired. Practical classes, so important in science subjects, were the worst hit and attendance of both students and teachers was very low," said Krishna Kumar.
Maintaining that all the students could not get enrolled to colleges of Patna, where the situation was relatively better, he said the best option was to make quality education available to all of them.
"The colleges should create such atmosphere in classrooms that draws students. At present, the students shy away from colleges. They are not content with the conventional method. They want something more and different," he said, adding the chancellor was keen on improving the scenario in higher education.
The chancellor’s office has also constituted two separate working groups to work out the modalities for Eklavya (inter-university sports meet) and Tarang (inter-university cultural festival). Both the events would be annual features on different themes, viz AIDS awareness, female education etc.
To promote participation, Kumar said, there would be an incentive of up to 10 marks for students taking part in NCC, NSS, sports and cultural activities. This is after a very long time that efforts have been initiated to revive sports and culture in colleges and universities. The chancellor has announced that he would himself inaugurate the two events, which would rotate among the nine universities every year.