Transforming Education
family
religion and universities are among the
few institutions that have survived
over centuries and millennia
universities are considered gifts of
religions
to the world of buddhism to
the indian subcontinent and to asia
of catholicism to europe of
protestantism to the us
and of islam to the middle east and
northern africa have universities
been the same throughout the history
did they transform over these millennia
if yes why and how
we do not know much about how the
ancient universities
in the indian subcontinent such as
takshila
nalanda jagadala vikramshila
odantapuri dharmapuri wallabi
sompura pushpagiri survived and
transformed
these universities were mostly in the
modern day bihar
undivided bengal gujarat
and orissa
there are some stories of course we know
us to their transformations one of them
is that king dharmapala of the pala
dynasty
starts a new university in modern day
bihar
called vikram shilla to tease nalanda
university as we know it out of its
complecency
which he thinks it is complicit
modern universities in india draw their
tradition from the
european tradition of higher education
thanks to
a colonial legacy europe begins
their histories or its history of
universities in the medieval period
wherein the universities were focused on
training
clerics who would be the knowledge
keepers
in fact many of the terminologies we use
today in the university come from them
the word university comes from medieval
europe
where which which is uh which is a latin
phrase
called universita magistra room it’s
colorium which means
communities of masters and scholars even
though many words like
dean dienery convocation chancellor
vice chancellor all these words also
come from the
medieval universities
wilhelm von humboldt a
prussian a diplomat minister
philosopher education in modern day
germany then prussia starts
a new university in germany called the
university of berlin
with the support of the prussian king
which
moves the university model away from the
medieval roots medieval forms
humboldt starts the university in berlin
which is focused on
not not primarily on teaching but
primarily on
research where the research is central
to the
mission of the university and of course
to the
society as well incidentally the modern
day
phd format which we are all aware which
has a
course work six months in india mostly
two years in the us and many other parts
of the world
research leading to original output
public defense of the thesis through a
viva voce was also designed by him
this new kind of university the
university of berlin
goes on to produce some of the finest
minds
that shape the 19th and the 20th
centuries
some of them are you’re familiar with
all disciplines
ficte schlemmaker hegel
sharpener shelling walter benjamin
albert einstein max planck karl marx
friedrich engels foreign bismarck
dubois schumann heisenberg
max weber ernst kasira
almost all disciplines these are some
central figures
in the disciplines that we study
why did the why did humboldt start this
new kind of university
the answer lies in the french revolution
french revolution was this peculiar
moment
in europe where a european society
became a
self-cancelling society
what happened in french revolution is
that
the institutions that europe had built
over the two millennia or
centuries were destroyed
the intellectual tradition in some sense
was overthrown
which was largely housed in the
seminaries and judiciaries and libraries
the revolutionaries burnt the seminaries
burned the libraries guilt in the judges
and the and the priests and and the
monarchs
in other sense the entire knowledge
system knowledge keepers knowledge
institutions
were being destroyed in the french
revolution
this set of panic alarms across europe
uh different monarchs in europe uh
europe was worried
humboldt was worried many asked
why did the french revolution take place
we all have studied in a high school
history textbooks
that french evolution took place because
of poverty
because of exploitation because of
despotic rule
revolutionary ideas uh
uh and of course some of them some of us
have also heard this line which is often
ascribed to
uh marian toynette queen miriam toynet
who supposed to have said that
if you don’t have bread let them eat
cake
humboldt also asked the same question
why did the french revolution take place
his answer is that france had a
political order
which was the product of the feudal
system the medieval feudal system
but the society was
rapidly changing at the time because of
european colonization
and because of which and explorations
into the new world
which were causing new ideas new wealth
and new transformations within french
society
and according to homeworld there was no
institution to mediate between the ruler
and the ruled so that this changing
society’s need
changing society could be factored for
political shifts and the social shifts
and because of the absence of such as
such a institution
which could mediate between the ruler
and the rule whom world
concludes the french revolution took
place
therefore that was the reason why french
revolution took place and if you want to
avoid one more french evolution
elsewhere in europe
the answer would be to create an
institution that would
mediate between the ruler and the ruled
and and and also avoid a self-cancelling
moment
for europe other european countries
by this uh mediation and humboldt thinks
that this institution which would
mediate between the ruler and the rule
would be the university in its new form
the new university primarily would be
in the homework and model would be an
elite institution elite research
institution
that would be focused on research which
would be primarily of use to the state
its scientific and social projects
social needs and that of the society
the in the homeworld university model
the university
has three primary functions
first is research do original research
the professoriate is supposed to be
engaged primarily in research
and then they have responsibility to
disseminate this research so writing
through
seminars and thirdly
to produce future knowledge producers
through the form of teaching
and that is why universities offer
degrees and offer courses
the homework model also incorporates the
kantian ideas of the human faculty which
permeate
the modern university especially the
idea that human mind has the faculties
of pure reason
practical reason and and judgment
the himalayan model in the 19th century
was imported in the u.s by the
universities by the presidents because
of the interest that it had created in
the
youngsters in the u.s were traveling to
germany to study at the
world university and
in the 20th century the model then from
the u.s
travels to rest of the world
in india modern universities were
established by the
colonizers we had of course the british
the french the dutch the portuguese and
others
one of the first universities in india
was established by the jesuits in
1542 in portuguese gova called
saint paul’s college which is said to
have had about
3000 students from all over asia
including
japan interestingly it also had the
first
printing press in the indian
subcontinent
the british established universities in
india in 1857
in the three ports cities calcutta
mumbai
and madras or chennai today
for the colonial needs and for
from a colonial world vision the
university they established was
in the form of an affiliation system
there would be a university
which would be a hub it was taken from
the london university model
and also informed by centralization and
control
under this model the university would
have
would be only a grad school having
masters and phd
phd came much later but mostly masters
and
would do examinations and it would have
it would not have undergrad programs it
would have several undergrad colleges
under it uh something today’s
amazon universities have as many as 800
undergraduate colleges in india
and these colleges would have no freedom
to start they would have to get request
permission from the university
the curriculum is given by the
university examination is connected by
the university
when to start the classes how many to
admit how much to charge the fees
is all decided by the university and the
degree also comes from the university
and this model today survives in india
pakistan
nepal bangladesh and sri lanka is not
seen in the rest of the world
post-independence indian universities
continue this model
but create a create parallel
institutions based on the new models
emerging from the us and russia
taking the learnings from the second
world war such as
in the form of iits or the indian
institutes of technology
and indian institutes of management
the national education policy 2020
released by the government of india
is a significant departure from the
colonial model
while it is unable to fully de-link from
its colonial legacy
you cannot divorce history
history is part of who we are and it
shapes what we do in the present
but structurally and philosophically the
new model proposed
in the the new uh national education
policy
is very close to the homeworld model
of course the policy in its present form
also owes a lot to the
sustained civil society debates and
interventions in india
the human model emerging out of the
concerns of the french revolution
has remained perhaps the biggest and
single most transformation
in the known history of the universities
however the universities
and knowledge disciplines within
universities have been transformed
through various social events and
individual innovations
the first and the second world wars had
a deep
impact on the university disciplines the
birth and the transformations of
disciplines of literature
psychology management emergence of
applied disciplines
and interdisciplinarity oh much to
these two world wars philosophical
thoughts and movements such as county
and idea of human faculty have
significantly influenced and structured
the
university and the disciplines as we see
them today
universities and countries also learn
from each other and
and transform public debates uh and
civil society interventions
shape universities and reshape them
constantly
governments remain one of the strongest
forces of
changes or lack of it in countries
around the world
individual innovations of presidents of
universities such as the school system
from harvard university
choice-based credit system from
california university system
are some of the examples of the
innovations coming from university
presidents
or vice chancellors as we know in india
local ethos also influence universities
for example
the inclusion of the working class is a
very very important
part of the higher education debates in
the uk
whereas academic freedom becomes central
for higher education
debates in the us and inclusion and
access becomes central tenants of higher
education database in
india lastly
do technologies transform universities
the answer is yes
technologies of storage and
dissemination have made universities
what they are today
but they transform them as part of a
much larger social shift caused by
technologies and over a long long period
of time
perhaps the universities would not have
been born today
if the technology of writing had not
been born
printing press has been seen as pivotal
to french revolution
with its ability to disseminate the same
message
across the masses large spots of mass
muscles without distortions
many say that this ability of the
printing press or printing technology to
disseminate the same message without
distortion
managed to cause french revolution and
because of french evolution the
university system
got transformed in the way
we have seen them and experience it
today
how will the digital technology
transform university
experiments native to digital culture
such as the
minerva project experimented in the u.s
a massive open online courses which have
very quickly taken up
taken over all over the world have had
not much impact on the
institution of university
digital culture shaped by digital
technologies will certainly transform
universities when
how to what extent we do not know yet
thank you
you