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 still is one of the many channels open to the career seekers. Hence, Colleges offering exclusive coaching only for NET Exams is neither fair nor inclusive. It needs to be justified why one specific career path is cherry picked and promoted as it is the responsibility of the HEIs to help them identify their potentials and to lead them to realize those potentials, and deliver those capabilities through careers tuned to those capabilities. It would be wrong to assume that all the students at Postgraduate level possess (and only possess) the inclination and capability to teach/research or both.

If we are alert to the changes coming over the field of Higher Education, we sure will train the youngsters to be capable of delivering a wider set of career skills, which will enable them to not only take on the churn in progress on career and Higher Education fronts at the moment but also to drill some career realism into their heads. There are a lot of elements the decision makers of the HEIs to be aware of while hammering a plan of action into shape viz a viz the Career Skills training aimed singularly at teaching. For instance, the teaching positions at the Aided/ Govt. level in the Country are slowly getting reduced. The Pandemic in action has aided the powers that be in pushing for increased allocation for online teaching and this will undoubtedly lead to further reduction of traditional teaching positions. In the not so long run, we will find the proportion of teaching slots cut down and my gut feeling is that the language sector will be hit fist. Of course I will be happy to be proved wrong in this case. The hints are extremely loud and credibly close! The Faculty training programme run by UGC HRDCs have switched online in a big way. It remains to be seen if they will revert to the old normal, given the economic gains of the online mode.

On the other hand, such a switch to online mode, though partial, will open up the need for a set of different capabilities on the part of the young who leave campuses. The career front will demand grads / postgrads with sharper emphasis on certain skills, heavy in communication, presentation skills and digital capabilities. When and if HEIs turn into a cafeteria of kinds, with credit transfers and online modes becoming a stronger, persistent part of the reality, the game would change further. Though an uncomfortable thought, who knows it will not move to an outsourcing of lessons, the way the hotels outsource food these days?!  Will our career-ready youth be ready with a strong digital presence and  entrepreneurial skills to set up online shops by then? Ready to vendor their stuff to the HEIs resembling food courts?!

Junior Research Fellowship is for those who aspire to take up research. And for those whose cups of tea include research as well as teaching, may be, even though research needn't automatically lead them to teaching, or those whose passion is teaching may not be interested in research. But here too rather than herding the postgrads JRF-wards, let them know what it means and to whom it is meant. Since research skills and aptitude can land them other significant Jobs too, the young needs to be educated of that too. 

I fully endorse that HEIs need to make all efforts to enhance the career skills of our students. But it is time we took the NET-bias out of it. The NET-clearing skills should not be foregrounded to such an extent that it becomes the only serious and significant career-centered training offered to the said category of students as there exists sufficient rationale for broad basing the skill training at that level. Rather, let the HEIs focus, if not more, equally on ensuring that the students possess the skill sets for a spectrum of career paths. Rather than being teaching-centric, let us promote career pathways which will gel with who they are and what they can on the one side, with what's on offer and what is emerging on the other side. That is a course correction which the Career Guidance Centers and Placement Training Cells of many HEIs need to make.