First, I would like to state my privacy and ethics policy on sharing publicly, matter related to mygov.in discussions.
a) I am free to put up on my blog for public viewing, the comments I make on mygov.in.
b) I should not and will not share any content of mygov.in portal that is private to logged in users and that is not contributed by me [unless I seek and get specific permission, which I don't think I will have any occasion to do so.]
c) I am free to put up links to content of mygov.in website which are accessible to the public
--- end privacy and ethics policy on sharing publicly mygov.in discussions ---
What is the New Education Policy that the Indian central (federal) government is working on, and is inviting participation from concerned Indian citizens like students, parents and teachers? This link gives a good idea: http://mygov.in/new-education-policy-group.html. A short extract from it:
The National Policy on Education was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then several changes have taken place that calls for a revision of the Policy. The Government of India would like to bring out a National Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the population’s requirement with regards to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry.
--- end extract ---
Related to skill development in higher education I made the following suggestions (split into multiple posts due to post size limitations; I chose not to upload a pdf file) on the mygov.in portal (slightly edited):
In technical higher education like Computer Science and Information Technology, in my view, these are the problems and suggested solutions:
a) Lab. courses which are meant to provide skills are not given much importance. Students are not examined strictly (it is rare for students to be failed in lab. courses), and so they tend to take it easy with lab. courses. Further, faculty are not given any career growth incentive for teaching lab. courses well. So lab. courses are usually dumped on junior faculty.
Solution: Do strict evaluation of lab. courses, failing students where necessary. Ensure career growth incentive for lab. course teaching faculty.
b) Industry experience is not given much value by UGC/AICTE recruitment and promotion norms. So industry experienced persons do not have much incentive to move from industry to academia as teaching faculty. Non-industry-experienced academics in fields like Computer Science and Information Technology usually lack thorough knowledge of practical side of the field.
Solution: Improve practical skills level of teaching faculty in technical higher education by making it easy for experienced and accomplished industry professionals to move to academia on regular academic pay scale and designation.
c) In general, I am given to understand that in medicine the teaching faculty are themselves practitioners of medicine in "teaching hospitals". However, in technical fields like Computer Science and Information Technology, typically the teacher is not a practitioner of the field! So then how can the practical skills be taught properly to students?
Solution: Strongly encourage via career growth incentives, teaching faculty in technical higher education to be practitioners of the associated field. Measures of their competence as a practitioner can be evolved over time, based on artifacts/prototypes/products developed by the teaching faculty which should be peer-reviewed to ensure good quality output and rejection of poor quality/fraudulent output. Specifically, in the Computer Science and Information Technology field, a software contribution record can be used as a measure of competence of the teaching faculty in the practice of software development.
a) I am free to put up on my blog for public viewing, the comments I make on mygov.in.
b) I should not and will not share any content of mygov.in portal that is private to logged in users and that is not contributed by me [unless I seek and get specific permission, which I don't think I will have any occasion to do so.]
c) I am free to put up links to content of mygov.in website which are accessible to the public
--- end privacy and ethics policy on sharing publicly mygov.in discussions ---
What is the New Education Policy that the Indian central (federal) government is working on, and is inviting participation from concerned Indian citizens like students, parents and teachers? This link gives a good idea: http://mygov.in/new-education-policy-group.html. A short extract from it:
The National Policy on Education was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then several changes have taken place that calls for a revision of the Policy. The Government of India would like to bring out a National Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the population’s requirement with regards to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry.
--- end extract ---
Related to skill development in higher education I made the following suggestions (split into multiple posts due to post size limitations; I chose not to upload a pdf file) on the mygov.in portal (slightly edited):
In technical higher education like Computer Science and Information Technology, in my view, these are the problems and suggested solutions:
a) Lab. courses which are meant to provide skills are not given much importance. Students are not examined strictly (it is rare for students to be failed in lab. courses), and so they tend to take it easy with lab. courses. Further, faculty are not given any career growth incentive for teaching lab. courses well. So lab. courses are usually dumped on junior faculty.
Solution: Do strict evaluation of lab. courses, failing students where necessary. Ensure career growth incentive for lab. course teaching faculty.
b) Industry experience is not given much value by UGC/AICTE recruitment and promotion norms. So industry experienced persons do not have much incentive to move from industry to academia as teaching faculty. Non-industry-experienced academics in fields like Computer Science and Information Technology usually lack thorough knowledge of practical side of the field.
Solution: Improve practical skills level of teaching faculty in technical higher education by making it easy for experienced and accomplished industry professionals to move to academia on regular academic pay scale and designation.
c) In general, I am given to understand that in medicine the teaching faculty are themselves practitioners of medicine in "teaching hospitals". However, in technical fields like Computer Science and Information Technology, typically the teacher is not a practitioner of the field! So then how can the practical skills be taught properly to students?
Solution: Strongly encourage via career growth incentives, teaching faculty in technical higher education to be practitioners of the associated field. Measures of their competence as a practitioner can be evolved over time, based on artifacts/prototypes/products developed by the teaching faculty which should be peer-reviewed to ensure good quality output and rejection of poor quality/fraudulent output. Specifically, in the Computer Science and Information Technology field, a software contribution record can be used as a measure of competence of the teaching faculty in the practice of software development.
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