A Five Day Workshop on
*Capacity** **Building** Programme under Human Development in Higher
Education*
* *
* *
*7-11 July 2009*
*School** of **Social Sciences***
*Mahatma** **Gandhi** **University***
* *
*Concept*
Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices achieved by
expanding human capabilities. In the case of the community of teachers and
researchers, it would mean development of capabilities for being
accomplished in one’s area of specialization. To be accomplished through
human development in higher education means to be professional in the
production and transmission of specialized new knowledge with a holistic
comprehension providing clarity about the relation of one’s specialization
to national development strategies, i.e., the relation to politics. It is
the state of being deeply knowledgeable in one’s field with critical
insights into its relation to social development. This level of human
development is engendered by the politics of knowledge that facilitates
creative intervention in national policy formulations. Such accomplished
academicians of critical consciousness, social justice, political
self-respect, sense of belonging to the society and intellectual
productivity empower the people with necessary insights enabling informed
participation in public policy debates. Though there is no dearth of
academicians in the country, accomplished among them are very few.
From the lack of academically accomplished human resources has followed
severe incapacity to conduct people-centred and empowerment oriented
research adapting scientific findings available at the global level. A
national research capacity enabling the country to share and contribute to
the stock of global public goods is wanted. Scientific
Communication facilitating tests, confirmation and sharing research results
with the global scientific community for providing credible advice to
national policy makers is not at a desirable height. Research based
curriculum percolating relevant international domains of knowledge in a
perspective of national as well as local developments are long way off. This
is not to mean that number of higher education institutions and the extent
of facilities of teaching and research in the country is inadequate.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread backwardness with a trend of exponential
decay in the domain of higher education. A sense of alienation affects most
of the youth and impedes appropriate learning even after specialization that
is supposed to make them accomplished. An explanation to this lack of
qualified knowledge is the past inability to construct a coherent education
system appropriate to the national social development. There are many
constraints to the higher education systems in the country, but generally
speaking, quality could have been improved with a more holistic approach to
the different levels of education. Instead skewed education efforts have led
into vicious circles: without Quality Teacher Education, primary education
became poor, leading to low standard at secondary schools, leaving college
education deplorable and Universities filled with substandard students. This
has created a deficit of skilled human resources in the country. Many
national and state level programmes of quality enhancement are in progress.
It is the context of the present workshop on capacity building under human
development in higher education.
The concept of human development capacity is the essential lubricant
of development, more important even than finance. The UN Development
Programme has defined "capacity" as "the ability of individuals,
institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and
achieve objectives in a sustainable manner". The terms "capacity building"
or "capacity development" describe the task of developing levels of human
and institutional capacity. Building institutional and organisational
capacity through human resource management has been widely attended to in
the country. However, capacity building for knowledge management as a part
of human development has not been getting that much attention. The report
prepared by the Millennium Project for the 2005 UN "Millennium+5" summit in
New York pointed to the need for a wide range of capacity building
interventions. It called in particular for "massive" human resource training
programmes for community-based and local government workers involved in
areas such as water, agriculture, nutrition and health. Nevertheless, human
resource development initiatives for improving knowledge production and
effective transmission are not given any specific focus. The National
Knowledge Commission of India constituted with the objective of transforming
India into a knowledge society emphasises the need for strengthening
Universities
as the hub of research capturing synergies between teaching and research
that enrich each other. It is widely recognized today that human development
depends on human capacity - the knowledge, skills, energy and commitment of
individuals and communities, and the strength of the institutions they
create and manage.
Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become an
integral component of capacity building at all levels. To support advances
in ICTs, impart instruction and transact curriculum meaningfully, it is
absolutely necessary not only to possess a critical mass of highly motivated
and trained human capital, but also to continuously upgrade their skills.
The key objectives of the Workshop are:
- To underline the need for increasing the pool of serious researchers by
up-skilling early career researchers, and supporting the advancement of
their research careers
- To facilitate development of teaching, learning and research capacities
among early career faculty members and research students in their respective
areas of knowledge
- To empower early career researchers to undertake more high quality
research and ensure its relevance to policy and practice by aligning it with
identified needs and priorities of people
In order to realize the above objectives the workshop is proposed to be
structured into three constituents: a) Methodological Up-skilling, b)
Communicative Up-skilling, and c) Practices. Methodological up-skilling will
involve up-dated lectures in theory of knowledge and knowledge production.
Some of the sophisticated analytical tools and interpretational strategies
essential for enhancing high quality research would be introduced.
Communicative up-skilling would include familiarisation of the most relevant
techniques of communication in writing research expositions and their oral
presentations. Demonstration of potentials of ICT will form a major
component there. Practices will comprise exercises for learning how to
practise. This constituent will familiarise the participants with the praxis
dimension of theoretical lectures under the first constituent, and exercises
relating to the application of communicative tools.
*Composition of the Workshop*
The workshop is to have a composition of 30 participants drawn from among
teachers and research students. Of them half will be selected by the State
Planning Board and the other half by Mahatma Gandhi University. It would be
ideal to pick the beginners. The Workshop is conceived to be residential
because the five day workshop seeking to realise the central objective of
up-skilling as noted above will require 60 work-hours. We conceive three
sessions: The morning session of four hours (9 am to 1 pm with a break of
fifteen minutes), The afternoon session of four hours (2 pm to 6 pm with a
break of fifteen minutes) and a night session of two hours (7 pm to 9 pm
without break). The workshop will have ten resource persons in all including
the co-ordinator.
Contact for registration: Radhika teacher (ph: 9447015664)
Dr. Sanal Mohan (
[email protected])
Note: There is no registration fee. The registration form would be available
from the contact persons.
--
Maya S.
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