If any one wants to live in the past rather than the future in the arena of higher education, if one wants to highlight the past as the source of merit and glory of education, then according to the educationists, there is a danger.
Recent actions by the UGC, India’s governing body for Higher Education, seem to have knowingly stepped into that danger.
Recently, the UGC has released draft guidelines for introducing a range of subjects including Ayurveda, Yoga, Vedic Maths in colleges and universities.
It is believed that the ‘Indian culture and heritage’ inherent in these subjects will attract foreign students to study them in higher education institutions in India.
These will be short-term ‘credit-based modular programmes’, the guidelines say. It has been asked to think about the three levels of ‘introductory’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘advanced’, accordingly, how the curriculum will be developed, who will teach, and how this education can be used at this time.
It’s a matter of thinking that, Indian music and dance are placed alongside Ayurveda, Indian languages alongside yoga, Vedic mathematics alongside universal humanitarian values.
At first sight it may seem that all these are diverse, a sign of India’s cultural diversity. But is it really so?
A section of academics has questioned that the Middle Ages in Indian history are completely understated, with no mention of art-literature-culture that was practiced parallel to Islamic rule, or syncretistic philosophies like Sufism.
There is not much to say about the rights movement of the lower classes of the society and Dalit people, even about their lost language, music and dance culture.
If a foreign student wants to take a course on Urdu or Arabic language and culture instead of Sanskrit, or a course on Sultanate architecture, or wants to learn about the spark of the lower class movement before the Santal rebellion, Will that wish be fulfilled?
The study of Indian studies is not a new topic, many scholars of the world have come and done extensive research in India at different times, the main attraction of their Indian study was the reconciliation of the diversity of this country – not to ignore it.
What is the key to higher education? With the passage of time, the scope of human knowledge is simultaneously widening and deepening, touching that height and depth.
It makes no sense to deny that modernity—the constantly changing ideas and values etc.—is inextricably linked with this.
But the proposal of UGC seems like it is just turning around and looking back by following the National Education Policy of the Central Government, that too selectively in the areas which are strictly favored by the government, the government ideology and the ideology of the ruling party.
In the name of Indian culture and tradition, it is actually cutting a narrow line of learning, beyond which everything is undesirable.
This thing has started from primary education, it will become terrible in the field of higher education.
