Linking Pedagogy To Research

Madhav Prasad Dahal

Our pedagogical system has been guided by the Western pattern of learning. Though many critics claim that knowledge originated from the East, Nepali schools and universities tend to follow the American or European model of education. Where ever it originated, education should facilitate us to live a complete life. Getting education is for preparing ourselves to cope with any circumstances that may emerge in the upcoming days.
Teaching has so far been an information gathering process. Today, learners passionately thrive to know meanings from the text books. Teachers teach to paraphrase, summarise and communicate authors’ perspective.

Deriving a moral or the essence of the whole text has become the ultimate goal of learning. Though there have been some sincere attempts to impart critical skills to the learners in the initial semesters of university courses, they are too scanty. Students are asked to collect so much information but they make no any critical responses over them. This trend has made the learners docile. As a result, the society is lagging behind. The university students should make a society moving. If they have critical opinions about any social arrangement, ideology or the system, there are chances of reforms.

Centers for research
But a docile acceptance of what exists from the tradition deprives a society of new and better possibilities. The students’ critical ability to question the existing and the past theories keeps the universities lively. This helps learners develop a habit of making research. Earlier research activities were conducted mainly by Centre for Nepal Studies (CNAS) and Center for Economic Development and Administration (CEDA). So the periphery of research was quite narrow. Research should become a part of teaching now. All the departments should become the centres for research activities. Universities now must make students understand how societies are changing. Scholars need to know what ideals existed in the past, how those ideals were contributing to society and if they are still applicable.

The outdated ideals cannot guide the present. So the research centres should think about modifying them as per the need of time. They should concentrate on how we can utilise them in the present setting. Any philosophical ideology should be changeable with the passage of time. But encouraging researchers to rote theories without their detailed application cannot contribute to a society at all.

A nation invests a huge deal for the education of its citizens. Nepal also spends around 10-15 per cent of its national budget for education annually. It has run about more than a dozen universities for higher education. The country expects its citizens to benefit from these educational institutions, learn life skills and later work for their country applying what they have learnt. There are specific skills that we need to learn at a certain age of our life. The primary level education intends to teach children good manners, family values, social traditions. It instills patriotism, national need and responsibilities towards the entire humanity and the non-human world.

The higher level education aims to teach students to make connections of humanity with the periphery. They learn to develop creative and critical faculties to sharpen their skills for survival, invention and development. At this stage, they are expected to fulfill their overall responsibilities. The university level education should inspire students to utilise the knowledge they have learnt to apply in their life situations. Getting higher education is not only for the survival of the self, nor is it just for finding a job. It should be for finding a wide highway on which a multitude of people can march coherently together. A university graduate is supposed to produce new meanings, inspire and encourage society to further investigation and invention.

Nepali universities understand research works in a wrong way. As stated in N. Butcher’s book Knowledge Management Strategies for Distance Education, enormous pressure is given to undertake research either through publication or undertaking research degree. Little attention is paid to assisting with philosophy and implementation of good teaching practices. Research works in some streams are just retrieved from archive and reused. They are the stuffs already available in the field of scholarship. They lack proper context as per our national need. This is the reason why so many of Nepali youths and the university graduates choose to do blue colour jobs abroad rather than working in their own country. They lack essential confidence and academic excellence.

Expectation
Universities have to be the centres for scientific and intellectual development. They are the ultimate knowledge organisations. They are the major agents of social change. They have been at the forefront in educating the future decision makers, entrepreneurs, new generations of citizens and leaders. Scholars observe that university environment should be suitable for the application of knowledge because they possess modern information and infrastructure. Knowledge sharing with others is natural there, and students should acquire knowledge from accessible sources. Universities should be determined to teach, engage students in research and service of the society resolving their most difficult problems. They must be credited for the technological innovations and the production of highly skilled personnel.

Academic appetites
Metaxiotis and Psarras claim that universities have two main roles: knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination. Universities should not aim to make learners just to collect information for getting jobs. They should concern more on developing skills that our country requires. The curriculum should be set aiming to uplift the downtrodden, marginalised and financially deprived group of people. We should not delay to integrate learning to research and life situations. Our moral values are eroding. Human relationship has been weakened. The temptation for accumulating material comforts is putting pressure on university students to make an easy earning at any cost. The corporate houses are entrapping students in such a way they cannot live without using their products and services.

The global connectivity has shifted most of their study hours to entertainment and unproductive forums. Social platforms are diverting their attention from reading. They are swayed away by mere impulses to be viral by trivial activities. In this situation, the universities now must focus on shifting students’ hedonic desires to academic appetites. They should launch programmes that reward learners for hard work, academic excellence.

(Dahal is an Assistant Professor at Tribhuvan University. mpdahal076@gmail.com)