Session Organizer: Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Executive Director (Interim), SDPI
Scholars drawn from across South Asia, UK, Canada, Switzerland and Singapore addressed the issue of production of knowledge, its uses and abuses at a brainstorming session organized on the second day of the Conference. Dr. Abid Q. Suleri, SDPI’s Executive Director (Interim), thanked all the participants for making it to the meeting arranged to draw out ideas for the next the next conference.
Dr. Suleri introduced the topic by observing that the production, dissemination, and uses and abuses of knowledge have been vexing issues facing researchers, educationists and policymakers alike. With the world becoming more knowledge intensive, this issue has assumed added importance. It is time to address the big questions of what is knowledge, who produces it and who benefits from it. These questions are of great significance for a research institute like SDPI that has prided itself on largely institutionally de-linked research.
It is hard to pinpoint the sources of knowledge. One of the questions that have dogged researchers is whether the knowledge produced benefits humanity or corporations. It was overwhelmingly agreed that knowledge is demand driven. In the West there is a great deal of demand for knowledge. Competition for ideas drives up the demand for knowledge. Increased resources in the West contribute to the dynamic process of knowledge creation. On the other hand, in the developing countries, there is demand for knowledge produced by research institutes when they are tied to the governments or the private sector. In some cases there is demand for knowledge in the private sector too.
If demand falls off then the process of knowledge creation suffers too. Often educational system becomes geared towards producing graduates for the market. This is happening increasingly in the countries of South Asia despite persistent claims of employers that they do not get the graduates of required calibre. These observations flowed from a great deal of discussion on the corporatization of research and knowledge.
The center of knowledge creation is the West. Our educational systems are in the process of constantly moulding themselves to the precepts of Western educational systems. While there is crying need for modernization, there is even greater need to preserve the local knowledge systems. Global thinking has to translate and harnessed to local context. Moreover, there is a dire need to protect local and traditional knowledge. There was a great degree of unanimity on the need to preserve local knowledge systems alongside modernization of educational system.
A great deal of discussion revolved around the issue of outdated curricula as one of the major obstacles to the creation and acquiring of genuine knowledge. Rigid and eternally unchanging curricula tend to ossify the mind of students; they are not encouraged to think critically and out of the box. This leads to stasis in thinking. In some instances curricula have been used to enhance the official bigotry and religious hatred that is prevalent in the society. It was further observed that curricula are also amenable to political expediency of the government of the day. In consequence of curricula becoming outdated, students become uncreative and rote-learning substitutes genuine knowledge acquisition. The ever-tightening embrace between faith and knowledge is also becoming an impediment to acquiring knowledge. Knowledge requires the unleashing of no-holds barred inquiry and politicized faith imposes stands in the way of this process. For knowledge to flourish, curricula upgradation should be accorded top priority. Alongside the upgradation of curricula, the associated issue of hiring top-level teaching staff to teach the upgraded syllabus should be given utmost consideration. With best will in the world, top-class curriculum is not going to have the desired effect if it is not backed up by a properly trained and equipped staff, it was pointed out by a majority opinion of the session.
The need for improvement in our educational system has never been more urgent. The existing disparity in terms of resource allocation between higher and primary education should be bridged. It is also imperative that those excluded from the process of knowledge creation should be provided an easy and sustained route into it, some participants emphasized. There is an overemphasis on higher education right now, which pushes all-important primary education to low-priority list. This is surprising in view of the primary education being the breeding ground of future leaders. The issue of reformation of educational system was one of the major concerns of the speakers from the South Asian region.
The question of research ethics also needs to be inculcated in the new generation of researchers, it was observed by some speakers. In addition, the use of research to achieve societal changes is also crucial. In the 1970s in Europe, research and knowledge was used for bigger societal changes and this needs to be repeated. For exchange and dissemination of knowledge it is important to expand existing contacts between research institutes in the region. Production of knowledge is under threat from the culture of googling was the view of few scholars in the session. It is hard to distinguish now between what is genuine knowledge and what is google-derived knowledge. This raises the serious issue of observing a finer distinction between information and knowledge. The issue of research ethics assumes added significance in this regard. It was also the dominant view that there is lack of a genuine research culture at out universities. Though there is abundance of data, there are not enough analysts to make sense of the mountains of data. Hence we need good analysts along with data feeders. For knowledge creation it is important to promote the culture of holistic and interdisciplinary at universities. Our education system should be geared towards producing big picture analysts. If we do not build high-rise building we are not likely to produce engineers who undertake such tasks. In this context demand contributes to the creation of knowledge and the crossing of ordered bounds.
The conference recommended to upgrade curriculum to enable student to think critically; to preserve traditional forms of knowledge alongside the new knowledge; promote research culture and genuine inquiry at the universities; observe discreet discrimination between knowledge and information; to separate politicized faith from genuine inquiry; promote independent and institutionally delinked research with emphasis on young researchers and greater coordination among researchers in South Asian and the world to enhance people-friendly research agenda.
Dr. Abid Q. Suleri closed the session by thanking all the participants for taking the trouble of making it to this very early morning session and expressed his desire to incorporate the broader thrust of the session into formulating agenda for the upcoming conferences.
Reported by Arif Azad
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