FLIPPED CLASSROOM 2: A Very Brief Sketch of Evolution of the Idea

On Foregrounding the Backdrops

On Foregrounding the Backdrops Much of my liking for large pictures has lot to do with the backdrops and the 'others' in the frames. By others I mean the also-rans, in a way! But this is more about the past when pictures were not so common, when not everything could be shot and framed, as we do now. Magazines with photos were a premium then and colour pics even harder to come by. Rather than the ones who were the focus, meant to be the focus, my eyes would involuntarily wander off to the rest of the things and people who have been caught by the camera. It is their looks, expressions, postures, feels, appearance, that my senses will work on. The man in the middle, or men, those on whom the story is supposed to zero in, will fade out and the backdrop will zoom in. Imagination tracking those to their illogical conclusions constituted my act of reading the pictures. It was such a delight as it helped one keep the trivial off and enjoy the core of the margins. When o...

NAAC Accreditation and Quality Shift in HEIs

Recently, in a get-together of Principals, a colleague of mine stated loudly that NAAC accreditation doesn’t really help improve quality of practices in a college. For reasons known to him best, he also said that I may not agree with what he said. Even before this colleague stated thus the thought has been around. It has become common place to run into fellow academicians who ask the what-has-accreditation-got-to- do-with-quality question. If one happens to be part of the college level Higher Education leadership, the question seems to make a lot of sense. This is so because during such leadership encounters, more often than not, one is reminded of umpteen instances of disconnect between the practices of many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the NAAC-scores. The performance bubble which was fully blown up to scale with the accreditation criteria shrinks back to the facts of the non-accredited past reality. In other words, the affairs at the HEIs drop back to the...

A Course for all Horses?: Rethinking NET Coaching at HEIs

Isn’t it time we rethought the excessive thrust attached to providing National Eligibility Test (NET) Examination Coaching to students at College / University campuses? There are many colleges in the Country which spent a lot of time and energy singularly focusing on making the Postgraduate students clear the NET examination. As a Teacher License Test which will enable them to take up teaching as a vocation, it is significant. Though it is fine to make the students capable of cracking the NET / JRF Tests, the lopsided importance attached to the same invites a rethink. For a number of reasons, there must be reservations on putting all your money in the NET Exams. Teacher-promotion of teaching as the only serious vocation too is a troublesome thought. To begin with, of the plethora of career pathways which open up after the graduation/ postgraduation, that of teaching at College / University level is just one. Though community may attach more value and significance to it, it ...

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