It’s a war and this is a battle. The casualties could be your souls or hearts. Armed Academics are moving forward to measure poetry”
These lines from John Keating, the English teacher at the well-known Welton school, in Dead Poets Society the 1989 film made by Peter Weir, resonate to current times when the needs of humanities and liberal arts compete with profit-driven engineer studies and management that is geared towards market.
The film follows the process of Keating instructs his students to take apart a piece of writing titled “Understanding Poetry in order to quantify the emotions of people that influence poems, a brand new surge of compassion and understanding begins to flow through the minds of young people who are captivated with the traditional discipline.
It is believed that the Welton Academy, renowned as a source of army of bankers, doctors engineers, management experts and doctors could be fictional, however, it is present across all over the world in various types and forms. In India IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and the IIMs (Indian Institute for Management) are the most sought-after institutes. What is the reason for such an influx of students to these institutions?
Based on the Indian Skills Report 2021, engineers’ employability is at an all-time high, sitting at 46.8 percent, and followed by MBAs which are 46.6 percent. While there has been a drop in the job-seeking capacity of graduates since the year 2019 where the figure was 47.4 percent Engineering and management students continue to lead the way. In terms of overall job-seeking capability, however, when it comes to employability is an issue, only 45.9 percent of the graduates possess the skills required that are required for employment.
In this context one of the ideas in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 that focuses on liberal arts has been generally embraced by academics. According to the proposed NEP, “the purpose of an education in the liberal arts isn’t just to be able for one’s first job however, it is also to prepare for a subsequent job, the third and even beyond. In the coming 4th industrial revolution as well as the fast shifting employment market an education in liberal arts will be more valuable and beneficial to a person’s job than ever previously.”
In a 2017 study from Dell Technologies, 85 per percent of jobs to be created to be found in 2030 haven’t been developed in the past. This means that the growth of schools that offer liberal arts could result in creating new employment. The question is which the study of poetry, literature, as well as other subjects in social sciences contribute to the development of students studying engineering or management? Diane F. Halpernn, the past president of the American Psychological Association, noted in the year 2010, that “the development of creativity and critical thinking, particularly at the postsecondary stage remains an ideal goal rather than an actual result.”
Literature is a great way to think about and imagine the social realities. The roots of literature are in the cultural and historical contexts, which allows students to have a critical View of These Problems.
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple the mix of expertise and compassion that come from liberal studies is essential in order to help one develop good communicating skills.
The Development of Thoughts Critical Thoughts
The value of the liberal arts is far beyond employment and encourages students to develop the process of critical thinking. Nazia Akhtar, who is a professor of English in the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, affirms: “The courses in literature as well as other disciplines allow students to use their imaginations as well as develop subjective approaches to considering life in general.”
Literature can also be a wonderful opportunity to think and imagine about current social issues. It’s grounded in historical and historical contexts. It allows students to build their abilities to think about these issues and gain a unique perspective of them. This will put them in great for the future regardless of whether they go out into the world as fresh IT professionals, or pursue career paths in research, or even become entrepreneurs, says the professor.
Liberal arts education is required for students studying engineering principally due to two main reasons. “Firstly the students when they begin their preparation for their engineering studies from the very beginning do not get to experience arts-related subjects at the schools they attend. In their training in technical subjects, they aren’t able to disengage from the dominant influence of culture inherited from social system,” claims Dickens Leonard, a faculty of literature at IIT, Delhi.
Unlearning is a necessity for the vast majority of students. “The most important part is developing critical thinking. The second year is when undergraduate students select subjects from economics, literature as well as philosophy, psychology and the like to develop their social understanding,” he adds.
In the near future, IITs will introduce a vernacular and the critical thinking class mandatory for students in the first year of their studies, with the spirit from NEP 2020 in mind. Leonard adds, “For the last 10 years, the entire concept of education in the technical field across the globe has evolved and, in the upcoming decade, the concept will change even more,” states IIT faculty. IIT faculty.
Technological advances that result from research definitely serve a social purpose. “If you consider them in terms applications an education in the liberal arts provides a view of human nature. The courses in fields like the study of literature or history are designed to prepare medical professionals and engineers of market-driven educational and economic systems with an open mind and the capacity to express themselves and be deeply thinking about the human condition,” says Akhtar.
Ajay Saini who is the instructor for the class called Rural India and Planning for Development in IIT Delhi emphasises on the importance of such classes. “The course introduces students to the realities that is rural India. They are able to develop an overall understanding of the challenges facing the rural India as well as the people who live there,” says Saini.
This theoretical expertise and skills for analysis are, as he says, helpful in helping students to analyze the path of progress and its socio as well as environmental effects with particular attention to the most disadvantaged and marginalized sections of society.
“Courses in disciplines such as History and Literature are designed to equip Engineers as well as Doctors working in market-driven Economics and Education With A Theoretical Perspective”
Incredibly, Symbiosis School of Liberal Arts (SSLA) that offers major and minor classes that are in Business Studies and Sciences, provides the degree of Master of Arts (Liberal Arts) Honours as well as Bachelor of Science (Liberal Arts) Honours. “The significance of this name lies by the fact that those who study attending SSLA are able to gain more understanding of their specializations and majors,” says Shweta Sinha Deshpande who is the director at SSLA.
The importance of inter-disciplinary understanding Deshpande says, “This helps them in developing interdisciplinary and holistic skills and knowledge. They are better at solving problems They acquire core transferable competencies from the many disciplines they are studying and also create critical thinking.”
Suraj Saw, who teaches English to engineering and management students at Galgotias University, however, recognizes the importance of having soft abilities. “I give them Englishin two forms: Communicative English and Functional English, both for particular purposes. The courses contain content relevant to soft skill such as grammar, the fundamental theories of communication, etc. These courses aid students in improving their soft skills, which will be required by engineers, managers and sciences,” Saw adds.
Liberal Arts A Oversight?
But, there are many students from all the institutions that view that it’s an excess and a waste of time because of the prevailing system of subject matter. “There certain those who believe that it’s not worth their time. A fundamental order of learning has made theories or philosophical types of learning a luxury, along with an unnecessary waste of time that is believed as being reserved for the elite few,” says Akhtar, the creator of Bibi’s Room: Hyderababadi Women and Twentieth century Urdu Prose. In today’s market-driven economy She explains that people that seek out liberal arts tend to be from wealthy families.
“Others don’t realize the value it brings to their resumes or abilities which is why we need to draw clear connections with, say, studying how to understand a novel text, and also learning to interpret what we see as text. We must not accept either narrative or language as a given worth,” adds Akhtar.
Saw is also adamant about the “extra burden” students see in these classes. “Most times, students are taking courses in Communication as extra work. They don’t realize the importance of soft skills as essential to succeed, in which case the hard-skills are no longer relevant,” adds Saw who taught at Amity University in Jharkhand.
Deshpande Director of SSLA However, she believes that students don’t view the concept of excessive. “Rather instead of referring to it as “excess”, the students come up with a lot of combinations that will benefit their own personal and professional development,” she elaborates.
A study conducted from the Ministry of Education recently found that, between 2012 to 2022 The percentage of students who choose to study arts courses after graduating from class 10 grown from 31 percent to 40. The study of 2019 from the Ministry of Human Resource Development called the All India Survey on Higher Education found that 93.49 million students were registered in art courses in the undergraduate levels, which makes it the top option. Based on the study Engineering and Technology appear to be the 4th most sought-after option, enrolling 38.52 lakh students over the 2018-19 academic session.
A Boost Trend?
It’s new that student’ interest in art are rising? Deshpande has said, “It seems that there an increasing consciousness among the public about the importance of the liberal arts. In the National Education Policy talks about Interdisciplinary learning as well as the value of the liberal arts. No matter if you read the India Skills 2021 Report or World Economic Forum Report 2020 all over the world, we are affirming that the value of the essential competencies that a liberal arts education provides.”
“Most Of the time students take courses on communication as an additional burden. They fail to grasp that Soft Skills are The Key to success, and without them the Soft Skills are not as important”
Saini also takes note of the trend’s emergence and states “When I began offering this course in the year 2019, about 25 students were took the course. However, around 200 people were interested in taking this course in the next semester. After that, I’ve needed to lift the cap several times to ensure that more students could be enrolling.”
But he highlights the difficulties and says, “I do feel that as these students had only a very basic understanding of social and humanities disciplines The course director has to devote a great deal of work to teach. It is not possible to assume that the entire class will be familiar with the fundamental notions like caste, tribal, class equity, caste, and so on.”
Leonard believes that the structural modifications to the entrance exams for medical and IIT colleges can be beneficial in assessing their knowledge. “Around 15 marks may be set aside to test the knowledge they have of common history as well as constitutional information,” he says.
The Dead Poets Society where Keating attempted to use unconventional methods of teaching in order to help individuals in critical thinking Keating was then punished. There was no preparatory school comparable to Welton Academy, nor the privileged parents of students could take the pleasure of relaxing in a cave by the river to read the poems. The students were there to take part in the ultimate race. Are our children going to get to enjoy their criticality and challenge the grain of a hegemonising knowledge economics?
Remember the fact that Galileo’s father wanted him to pursue a degree in medicine by the year 16th. Galileo chose math. The choices aren’t always easy to make. Usually, the society claims that it’s because of the economy. dumb.
