Thursday, April 18, 2013

Nature and Science 2011 Articles on Lack of Importance Given to Teaching Nowadays

Here is a Jan. 2011 article, "Scientists Fault Universities as Favoring Research Over Teaching", http://chronicle.com/article/Scientists-Fault-Universities/125944/.

It refers an article in Nature, Jan. 2011, "University cuts show science is far from saved", http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110112/full/469133a.html, which states that funds for teaching have been cut in UK universities.

It also refers an article in Science, Jan. 2011, "Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities", http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/152.summary, by 13 authors from 11 different US universities including MIT, Harvard and Yale, which states, "The reward systems at research universities heavily weight efforts of many professors toward research at the expense of teaching, particularly in disciplines supported extensively by extramural funding". It suggests seven initiatives for ensuring equal commitment of science faculty to their teaching and research missions.

Articles in Nature and Science, both of which are top scientific journals/publications, raising the lack of importance given to teaching, in 2011, clearly shows that research grant money is corrupting academic teaching ideals in the scientifically advanced Western world. Is India going to follow their path and make the same mistakes? Will young Indian students have to endure mediocre and poor teachers due to excessive importance being given to research in Indian universities? I think there is a serious risk of such things already happening and becoming more commonplace in future.

1 comment:

  1. I thought some readers may want to know that I sent a mail a few minutes ago with mostly similar content to the above blog post to appropriate Indian government ministers, top academic administrators, some NAAC executive committee members etc.

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