President Irandoust remarked that insecurity was one of the reasons why
people resist change. He identified negative attitudes as a stumbling
block towards creativity. While creativity is the ability to imagine
the new while working on the existing, our education system tends to
kill the creativity of children, the AIT President remarked. He
narrated instances of creativity of 13 year old kids, while regretting
that the education system is often unable to help it blossom. “The
capacity to change should form the very core of the evaluation
processes,” he added.
Prof. Joydeep Dutta of the Center for Excellence in Nanotechnology
spoke about academic aspects of creativity. He remarked that teaching
is directly related to communication skills. Mr. Börge Wallberg,
Interim Director of Yunus Center, was critical of the self-purported
mission of “academic excellence” of some institutes. He remarked that
excellence arises in what students achieve when they pass out of the
institute. He added that the purpose of an institute or university
should not be restricted to academic knowledge, but should stress on
innovation and creativity. He quoted examples of creativity among
students in Sweden to stress the need for innovation.
Mr. Prantik Bordoloi, a doctoral candidate from the School of
Management identified factors that influenced the motivation of
students. He remarked that there had been a huge change in demography
of students since more and younger students are joining AIT. Moreover,
students are more mobile and are willing to work anywhere in the world.
Most students today have little work experience and there are more self
paying students.
Dr. R.M.A.P. Rajatheva, associate dean (undergraduate programs)
described the undergraduate program as a huge challenge and
responsibility. “We are now teaching 17-18 year old students which is
different from dealing with master’s and doctoral students,” he said.
Dr. Jonathan Shaw, Director, AIT Extension provided examples of Problem
Based Learning (PBL), and mentioned how universities and institutes
were finding it difficult to implement PBL.
Dr. Evangelos Angelos Afendras, Director CLIQ, remarked that knowledge
is often regarded by some as a rigid body of things which is guarded
like a secret and that “science has become a religion”. Elaborating on
the common threads emerging out of the discourse, Dr Evangelos
elaborated on what he termed as “axis of evil” in education. The
publisher ensures that a particular book is prescribed, while the table
of contents of that book becomes the syllabi. The content is regarded
as lecture notes, while the power point lecture is downloaded from the
website of the publisher, he added.
This was the second panel discussion organized by CLIQ.
Ir. Erik Lucas Julien Bohez, Ms. Ginette Chamart and Dr. Evangelos
Angelos Afendras