‘Mere skill takes nowhere, universities should make students competent’
   Date :02-Apr-2020

Rajan Welukar_1 &nbs
 Rajan Welukar
 
Principal Correspondent :
 
“We have been teaching skills to our students. Instead, our universities should make students competent. I have learned preparing chapatis. I am taught to make chapatis circular. This is what we call skill. But chapatis should be circular all the time then I can be called as competent enough. There is another aspect of competency which is freedom of speed. If I can learn something in 10 hours and somebody taking 30 hours. For 20 hours the intelligent person who does the work in 10 hours remains idle. Because he did not get respect for his freedom speed,” stated Prof Rajan Welukar, a two-time Vice-Chancellor of different universities. He expressed his views on ‘How Universities should run?’
 
while talking to ‘The Hitavada’. Dr Welukar worked as Secretary (Education) to Governor of Maharashtra before becoming Vice-Chancellor of Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) and later Mumbai University said, “University came from the word Universe. Universe means openness. With openness in mind you can become lighthouse that is the purpose of opening university in entire world. Universities are creating leaders, not confined to politics. Leaders can be in sociology, science, history, psychology, economics.” “Things are changing fast and we are unable to run with that speed. We have to understand what kind of universities are emerging. We know the public university since decades which is running because of several restrictions. They don’t have the kind of autonomy they sought. There was an issue of access, affordability, so subsequent Governments came up with an idea of commercial or private universities,” explained Dr Welukar.
 
“With the passage of time, universities tried to change their structures but demand of learners has changed. I want to learn a communication and technology in engineering. I cannot do that. Police is doing good work but they have not learned scientific communication using which they can communicate with people. Medical or engineering student is not taught social communication. Universities should remove such lacunas, added Dr Welukar.
 
Dr Welukar is a student of statistics. After spending most of his early life in small house of Mody number 3 in Sitabuldi, he rose to become Vice-Chancellor and chairing several committees that recommended policy decisions to Government. “Many people are now aware of how credit system came into existence. In 1901, Andrew Carnegie, a business tycoon in USA thought of helping highest respected and lowest paid persons. His team did the survey. There were some colleges working for two days, four days, for six days. Some teachers are taking different number of classes. Some teachers are doing on all the six days. Carnegie thought how could the classification done. His team designed a scheme, persons working for all six days would be given help and those completing some number of credit hours would get pension. This is how credit based system came. Are our universities applying the same principle as far as credit based system is concerned?,” asked Dr Welukar. “We were not used to virtual classroom, on-line learning platform. Blended teaching and learning system has come and our education system is not prepared. Coronavirus outbreak has woken us up that we have not prepared. We should be able to teach others. But we have to learn from others. I am talking about majority not about exception,” pointed out Dr Welukar. Explaining about the megatrends, Dr Welukar said, “There are four mega trends at global level. One is emerging markets and urbanisation, trade, people, finance, and data, greater global connection. In his book ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ Yuval Noah Harari says we need Government at world-level. We were in knowledge illusion, we were assumed we know every thing, our systems were good. But developed countries like US, UK, Italy came to know they were totally unaware of many things. I call this as Knowledge Illusionary Society, we have to come out of it. Once we accept then we will understand. We should not have competition among ourselves, we need to be in cooperation with each other. We have to develop the concept that global resources are for all.” Dr Welukar talked about third and fourth megatrends-- Accelerating global connection, and responding to the challenges of the world respectively. Disruption has come in teaching and learning which is to be understood. We have to adopt consistent changes. According to Dr Welukar, in new era, everybody is learner. Teachers too have to learn and understand that they are not mere teacher. Another important term Dr Welukar coined is Collusion of technology and humanity. “Machine will not understand cognitive domain. We need to have collusion to technology and humanity. Develop technology but it should not overtake humanity. Humanity is not for technology but technology is for humanity. What Michio Kaku who wrote ‘Physics of the future’ said, 21st century belongs to Biology. With Coronavirus outbreak, his prediction came true,” commented Dr Welukar. Dr Welukar feels, university needs to interact with corporate but both have their egos. Ego is darkness that cannot resolve the issue. “There are institutional challenges. Every individual should work in team. In last 30-40 years we imbibed the thought of individualism into youngsters we have committed a blunder. We need to engage them. How to spend time is the biggest problem that came to the fore during lockdown time. Another aspect is of imparting professional training to be given to everybody from Vice Chancellor to peon. I was never taught financial management and I faced difficulties. Had I got training it would have helped me,” stated Dr Welukar. Expressing regret over the limited role of university, Dr Rajan Welukar pointed out, “University must be proactive. For example, when coronavirus outbreak came, it was expected from university to provide a solution to Government. Therefore I say we need to understand that change is mandatory and survival is optional. We should have taken a decision in the month of January, when the news of coronavirus came from Wuhan. We have failed in assessing the future situation. If universities don’t have futuristic approach they too would face the similar problem.”