Doing It Right

This summer I ruined my holidays: I attended what is a compulsory orientation course for newly appointed university and college teachers at a UGC (University Grants Commission) Human Resource Development Centre (HRDC) in one of the state universities in Karnataka. I had been amply forewarned, because hordes of my friends and colleagues in the teaching profession had undergone this mind-numbing ordeal several times over in their many years of service.

The cause behind this sense of waste and ruin is not the usual lament. Neither right intention nor preparatory work was lacking. The UGC believes, rightly, that to make one a good teacher mere subject competence would not suffice; he or she needs to be trained to teach. Accordingly, hundreds of teachers are made to undergo such month-long training programmes in scores of HRDCs (until recently, Academic Staff Training Colleges) all through the year. The people at the HRDC where I did my orientation course were very conscientious, punctual, accommodating and efficient. The resource persons—all senior-level professors from various institutions and disciplinary backgrounds—came on time, took classes with great passion and impeccable PowerPoint presentations, designing classroom games and involving us in conversations. Facilities for outstation participants were very decent and what’s more, not just the resource persons, but also all participants were paid travel and dearness allowances for attending this course. It could not get better than this.