When I began teaching in the English department of Jadavpur University (JU) nearly 12 years ago, I was in the happy position of returning to my alma mater. It’s not always a good idea to return to old haunts, but JU had always been a second home for me. More importantly, it gave me an opportunity to try and figure out if education can be delivered differently from the way it was when we were students.
In 2003, a major change was implemented in the arts faculty of JU, when we switched over from the annual to a semester examinations system. Much to everyone’s surprise, the change was relatively painless, but was nonetheless accompanied by intense debate over the new pedagogy that the semester system brought in its wake. Under the annual system, students were tested only at the end of the year, but in theory. The real tests were administered at the end of the second and third years in undergraduate programmes, since the first year was devoted to examining subsidiary or minor subjects. However under the semester system, exams are held twice every year. Also, end-semester exams account for only 60 percent of total grades, the remaining 40 are awarded on the basis of continuous evaluation.
Opinion was divided over the merits of the new semester examinations system. Critics argued that learning had now been reduced to a process of quick digestion rather than slow osmosis. In addition, once you wrote an exam for a particular paper or course, it was done with and you could afford to forget it completely. This could be a problem in the humanities, where the curriculum cannot be divided into discrete components, as is perhaps possible in the quantitative disciplines. In the humanities, learning is more intimately bound with the process of growing up and the attainment of maturity. Oppositionists argued that this process cannot be hurried and regimented.
Of course, the system has its good points as well, and on the whole, I believe we have gained more than we have lost from the change. But it’s not my intention here to debate the pros and cons of the semester system. What concerns me is the increasing tendency in higher education to privilege knowledge over understanding. This is particularly true of the humanities where funds managers worldwide are pushing departments to teach courses which impart specific, market-friendly skills, and are, in some way, ‘productive’. Education which doesn’t directly translate into jobs or livelihoods is deemed surplus and therefore irrelevant.
Many years ago when this debate over ‘relevance’ took place in our department, one of my colleagues memorably remarked that it wasn’t our job to be relevant and we should look for some other term of reference. This seemed harsh then, but over the years, I have been increasingly persuaded that he was right, especially vis-a-vis the literature faculties. Why does one study literature seriously, as opposed to someone who ‘reads and runs’? One does so because it is the best way to study humanity. We do so to understand the world, constructed as it is of individuals as well as societies.
Such understanding does not come easily, nor can it be delivered as a finished product at the end of three or five years. But the bare minimum that is necessary for such understanding to take place is time and lots of elbow room in the head. This is something that needs to be worked into the curriculum and pedagogy. Unlike in the quantitative disciplines, the curriculum in the humanities is not an end in itself but a means to an end. It is symbolic, at best an illustrative entity. It serves a purpose, but is not the purpose in itself. The teacher therefore needs to go beyond the curriculum, to create awareness of what is not contained within the narrow confines of examination answers. The student likewise, needs to be encouraged to explore activities and interests beyond the narrow calculus of profit and relevance.
Broad-based humanities education should take the learning process outside the classroom. Given the compulsions of the Indian scenario where teacher-student ratios are unacceptably high, there is a limitation on what can be delivered inside the classroom within the restrictions of time-tables. Therefore, the learning process must continue outside the classroom. But for this to happen, the teacher must acknowledge the student as an adult and an equal — there can be no talking down, or one-directional transmission of conventional wisdom. The learning process outside the classroom must be a two-way-street, with the teacher and students in constant dialogue. Again, this is not the soft pedagogic option. It calls for great reserves of time and patience, often stretching beyond office hours.
Much of what I have outlined may seem utopian. And indeed, impracticable in institutions which do not provide a congenial environment for such initiatives. Happily, JU continues to be such a place. But unhappily, it is a small island on the map of Indian higher education. And given the incremental utilitarianism of higher education worldwide, there’s a strong likelihood of such islands being overwhelmed by the populist tides of purposive utilitarianism.
(Abhijit Gupta is associate professor of English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata)