Sunday Posts

  I recently spoke at an Education Conference and was asked to comment on what is likely to happen in Higher Ed sector post-pandemic. My presentation was about four key changes. I am not sure it resonated with the audience - I very much looked the odd historian trying to talk about the future - but I sincerely believe what I mentioned. Therefore, it is wothwhile to record these observations here, before they were completely forgotten, even by me!  My broad point was that pandemic, traumatic and game-changing as it has been, is not the only force changing higher education. Otherwise, after the infection numbers start falling and we start facing safer again, everything would have gone back to how it was earlier. However, a number of things happened in the last few years, which, taken together, would have a profound effect on how we live now. Before we attempt making a prediction about what happens to Higher Ed, it is definitely worth taking stock of what's changed. Here are some...

My current work is focused on alternate credentials based on project work. The key idea here is to create credentials based on experience and create a bridge between the academic world and vocational preparation. Therefore, the current excitement about microcredentials at the university corridors is at once a source of hope and also of disappointment (see my rant about microcredentials ).  But, at the same time, I also deal with this persistent doubt about what we are doing: Are we promoting an unsustainable skills fetish which trivialises education and sacrifice individuality and freedom to think at the altar of neoliberal 'paying the bills'? Having spent most of my working life in For-profit education, I know which side of my bread is buttered. At the same time, my life as a historian of higher education, which I pursue with no less zeal or care, I feel burdened with the need to question my practice.  For a start, I know that our idea of university is a historical, rather th...

  Let's start with a hypocrisy warning: I have gone back to college three times for degrees. First time because I was told that was what everyone did; second time, because I migrated and wanted to have a degree that was respected in the UK; and third time, because I wanted to read history and thought that it was the great unfinished business in my life. But, it is precisely because I did all those things, I feel the college, in its most common form available today, corrupts us. However, there is more than just individual corruption. Obsession with college can destroy whole nations. I am Bengali after all, and I think the college fetish corrupted whole generations of Bengalis who became degree obsessed (which explains my own misadventure), disconnected and impractical people. We stopped doing things, living life and travelling around the world. We took college degrees as ends in themselves and thought that everyone around us would think the same. Sadly, that was not to be. This expl...

  To understand the state of new imagination in Higher Ed, it's best to look at the recent buzz around microcredentials. Touted to be the next big thing - after what? MOOCs? - this is one big non-event that everyone is talking about. Ask anyone in the academia why microcredentials is such a great thing, the answer will focus on the 'micro' part rather than the 'credential' part. That it is short - less than one course credit - is supposed to be the exciting part. It seems that the universities, until now, did not notice that people learned, whether there was a course credit for it or not. Therefore, this is like Columbus' 'discovery' of America: It did not matter that some people lived there already! Perhaps it indeed is like Columbus' discovery: It is not about creating a space but claiming it for oneself! It is a defensive rather than an innovative move for the academia. There is a growing chasm between what the people need to learn - primarily due...

This worked for me before. When I am feeling stuck, lost and unable to progress, I have set myself up for a change. 100 days worked for me best - a commitment to become something else in roughly three months! This is one such time. Pandemic is over, at least psychologically, and I am in the middle of a flurry of activities. But I am starting to feel burnt out. Too much bad work, the sort one has to do at a workplace but which leaves a bad taste at the end of the day, is cramming my schedule. On top of all this, I have this feeling of going in circles, not moving forward. I know I have to change something quickly. The pandemic has taken its toll. It induced a strange career see-saw: My work stalled at first and then I took on a project that sucked me in. I initially enjoyed getting back into action and did more than I was required to do. But, at the same time, I got into my comfort zone. The regularity of this engagement made me more secure than I like to be. I enjoyed some of the work,...

Today, I wish, would be the first day of the rest of my life. I am in that honest mood: That I feel stuck, of going nowhere, yet again. I knew this was coming. Against my better judgement, I was getting sucked into company life. I was telling myself a lie - I enjoy it! After eschewing this path for many years, I suddenly felt that illusion to be in control, of getting things done. What was it - the pandemic-induced pathos? - that led me down this path? But, sure enough, I now have that unmistakable feeling of getting nowhere. I did what I usually do at moments like this: I got away. I came to Istanbul. I possibly needs the strange combination of hustle and the 5000-years of history around me to recharge my senses and temper my self-importance. I am reading this beautiful little book called 'The four thousand weeks' which is about embracing the limitedness of life and focusing on what counts. And as I do this, I know I am on the wrong path. My trouble - and I shall call it troub...

As it rolls out its National Education Policy (NEP), India is faced with the dilemma that every other post-colonial nation has to answer: Whether to 'nationalise' higher education, by privileging traditional languages and 'Indian' knowledge over liberal humanities and cosmopolitan outlook? This is not the first time India is dealing with this question. The first time, just after the Independence, the answer was a resounding endorsement of cosmopolitan science, based on a modernist view of nation-building. Nehru wanted an India that looked forward, not backwards. The second time, in the 80s, shorn of the optimism and adrift in the neoliberal world, the answer was low on nation-building aspiration and overtly focused on technological cold-start.  This road now leads us to where we are - a deja vu all over again! The country has been a major beneficiary of globalisation, but its blessings were mixed. A lot of people has been left behind, communities have been replaced by a...