Professor of Practice: An experiment in the right direction.

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It's a fact that with the very inception of formal schools, colleges and universities in compliance with the Macaulay system in our country we people have been trained to think that education is only that which is taught in these formal institutions. Our mind in this system was trained in a special way to think that only those are educated who have a degree issued from a formal institution set-up by the State.
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The objective of the Macaulay System was nothing beyond the creation of a native educated class designed to support and assist in various ways the ruling class what the Britishers presumed themselves.

 The system so devised lay more emphasis on "education" than "learning." 

Education or learning gained informally or through self-help didn't have any place in the system that we inherited from the British and decided to nurture it further on the lines prescribed by them. 
We have forgotten that Sur,Tulsi or Kabir didn't have degrees but countless students earned degrees & doctorate by writing exams and preparing theses on their compositions.
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In independent India this obsession for degrees continued. 
This led to further formalisation of education. The formalisation of education paved the way to institutionalisation of education.  
The education today is evaluated only in terms of Institution and degree; nothing else.
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If I am asked to point out the two major shortcomings of the higher education system in India I would unhesitatingly say that they are institutionalisation and formalisation of education. It treats experts or experienced born outside this system the enemy-in-chief of its. 
When I say this I am not vilifying formalisation and institutionalisation. What I intend to emphasize is that they are only a necessary evil which can not be dispensed with in the face of non availability of an alternative.

In other words you are treated uneducated in absence of any formal degree in hand from a formal institution.

 किसी भी क्षेत्र में आपकी शिक्षा, कौशल और विशेषज्ञता जो दशकों में फैले अनुभव से प्राप्त होती है, यदि आपके पास कुछ परीक्षा उत्तीर्ण करने के बाद कोई डिग्री नहीं है, तो उसका कोई महत्व नहीं है। 
 Your learning, skill and expertise in any field that is gained out of experience spanning into decades carry little significance if you don't have any degree after passing some exams. These exams happen to be of the most formal, theoretical and therefore impractical in nature.
 
       The irony is— this meaningless exam forms the criteria for not only awarding a degree or diploma but a basis of getting a job in public or private sector.

        The Indian Education System has totally become formal and institution based and therefore dysfunctional insofar as employability is concerned.
 Further,It leaves little scope for those without degree.
How skilled,experienced one may have been,having no formal degree or certificate in hand, is a disqualification for any position much less a position of a professor in a university.
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But this stagnant state of the system was sought to change for better with the introduction of new education policy.

 In an effort to tap the reservoir of expertise-experience lying outside the domain of Higher Education Institutions(HEI) a new position has been sought to be created within the formal system.

Yes,I intend to refer to the "Professor of Practice",a new position proposed to be created in universities as per the latest UGC guidelines.

Those who don't have any formal degree or certificate in hand yet having proven expertise and experience in the field of their practical achievements have now opportunity to be a part of the Higher Education System by being the "Professor of Practice" in a university.

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The UGC recently has come up with the guidelines with regard to the recruitment of these "Professor of Practice".

           The recruitments are to be made on the basis of inviting nominations followed by screening by a committee of experts. They will be recruited against creation of 10 percent additional positions over and above the existing positions already sanctioned for professor of theory (!). 
These professors of theory are,generally speaking, cut off from the latest developments in the field of their subjects of teaching. 

As a consequence, the subject matter of their teaching becomes stale, anachronistic and stereotypical. 

As student, I have seen many professors biding time in the class by resorting to tricks of sorts under the garb of teaching.

To conclude, we can say that it is an experiment in the right direction.

 It will not only give an edge to the academia-industria mix in the teaching profession but will also include agraria.

 It will go a long way to create opportunities for those who are experts without a formal degree.

        The scheme, if implemented rationally and without nepotism of sorts, will add to becoming our universities a centre of not only theory but the Hub of both-Theory & Practice!.
                                               R.R.Prabhakar.
                                                 12.10.2022.

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