Dos and don'ts for a university teacher
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Shabbir A Bashar
Undergraduate students in universities not only gather basic academic knowledge but also learn how to learn. The post-graduate courses are designed to stimulate questions about methodologies, styles and deeper understanding of subjects, so that some of the students go for research. As learning is a perpetual part of life, a university degree changes most people's outlook on life. As such, universities are vital institutions of modern societies.
They must address the needs of the societies they are part of. The universities should be allowed to pursue academic goals autonomously. They must also bear their responsibilities of not only imparting knowledge back to the society at large but also address the latter's contemporary and future needs.
Consultancy by definition is a short-term paid employment to perform a specific task. A consultant is hired simply because of inability of an employer to provide full time employment and benefits. Therefore, a consultant have to be highly paid under short-term contracts to compensate for his or her time. It is ridiculous to say that consultancy warrants no creativity. How else a consultant can in short time find solutions to a client's problems; only knowledge and networking abilities enables a consultant do it.
University teachers should not only teach. They should also explore other avenues to propagate knowledge and seek new knowledge through continuous research, with a keen eye on how to best to benefit the society, they consider themselves to be part of. Teaching is only a part of their task. Keeping up with new findings in their fields and polishing their personal academic expertise is equally important. Failure of a teacher to catch up with the advancement of knowledge in the rest of the world leads to his or her failure of responsibility to the immediate society. It explains why Bangladesh is lagging behind the rest of the world. In the more advanced societies, there is close collaboration between academia, industry and the administration. In Bangladesh, public universities have a reputation for being an extension of petty partisan - and often violent - politics. They are far behind the universities in advanced countries, where academics are respected on their own right. No academic, worth his or her salt, would like to be in such ill reputed institutions.
A secure government job, with all the authority and without any responsibility can be pleasing to the educated only in an ailing and stagnant society, where the politicised among the civil servants can got whatever they want. Many public university academics are no different in such a society. Guaranteed pay and benefits out of tax payers' money, are all they want with the privilege to do politics. Talk shows and moonlighting in private universities are extra allures these days. They are more interested in social status than doing research of international standard. How many of them can take credit for publishing their research works in international journals? How many of them sit down to think about how to improve their society using their knowledge? The number could be shrinking since the academic culture in the country simply does not value these pursuits.
Only irresponsibility, lack of self esteem and arrogance can provide the undue justification to get paid out of tax payers' money without rendering the due service. Do the students, tomorrow's work force, get the education the society or the parents expect from the public universities? And the country has to seek foreign aid to pay foreign consultants. How are the public universities helping keep Bangladesh independent or are we expected to perpetually worship them for their valiant role in 1971?
Only by keeping partisan politics at bay, and maintaining academic discipline and ethics, the universities in the country, private or public, can do justice to the students. No individual, who spends time elsewhere, should be paid out of taxpayers' money. An individual who considers inadequate, the pay and benefit package, paid out of tax payears' money, should resign and find a more lucrative job elsewhere. This is necessary to stop cheating the tax payer. No teaching is better than teaching how to be a cheat.
The writer lives in USA
Undergraduate students in universities not only gather basic academic knowledge but also learn how to learn. The post-graduate courses are designed to stimulate questions about methodologies, styles and deeper understanding of subjects, so that some of the students go for research. As learning is a perpetual part of life, a university degree changes most people's outlook on life. As such, universities are vital institutions of modern societies.
They must address the needs of the societies they are part of. The universities should be allowed to pursue academic goals autonomously. They must also bear their responsibilities of not only imparting knowledge back to the society at large but also address the latter's contemporary and future needs.
Consultancy by definition is a short-term paid employment to perform a specific task. A consultant is hired simply because of inability of an employer to provide full time employment and benefits. Therefore, a consultant have to be highly paid under short-term contracts to compensate for his or her time. It is ridiculous to say that consultancy warrants no creativity. How else a consultant can in short time find solutions to a client's problems; only knowledge and networking abilities enables a consultant do it.
University teachers should not only teach. They should also explore other avenues to propagate knowledge and seek new knowledge through continuous research, with a keen eye on how to best to benefit the society, they consider themselves to be part of. Teaching is only a part of their task. Keeping up with new findings in their fields and polishing their personal academic expertise is equally important. Failure of a teacher to catch up with the advancement of knowledge in the rest of the world leads to his or her failure of responsibility to the immediate society. It explains why Bangladesh is lagging behind the rest of the world. In the more advanced societies, there is close collaboration between academia, industry and the administration. In Bangladesh, public universities have a reputation for being an extension of petty partisan - and often violent - politics. They are far behind the universities in advanced countries, where academics are respected on their own right. No academic, worth his or her salt, would like to be in such ill reputed institutions.
A secure government job, with all the authority and without any responsibility can be pleasing to the educated only in an ailing and stagnant society, where the politicised among the civil servants can got whatever they want. Many public university academics are no different in such a society. Guaranteed pay and benefits out of tax payers' money, are all they want with the privilege to do politics. Talk shows and moonlighting in private universities are extra allures these days. They are more interested in social status than doing research of international standard. How many of them can take credit for publishing their research works in international journals? How many of them sit down to think about how to improve their society using their knowledge? The number could be shrinking since the academic culture in the country simply does not value these pursuits.
Only irresponsibility, lack of self esteem and arrogance can provide the undue justification to get paid out of tax payers' money without rendering the due service. Do the students, tomorrow's work force, get the education the society or the parents expect from the public universities? And the country has to seek foreign aid to pay foreign consultants. How are the public universities helping keep Bangladesh independent or are we expected to perpetually worship them for their valiant role in 1971?
Only by keeping partisan politics at bay, and maintaining academic discipline and ethics, the universities in the country, private or public, can do justice to the students. No individual, who spends time elsewhere, should be paid out of taxpayers' money. An individual who considers inadequate, the pay and benefit package, paid out of tax payears' money, should resign and find a more lucrative job elsewhere. This is necessary to stop cheating the tax payer. No teaching is better than teaching how to be a cheat.
The writer lives in USA