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Mahendras has started special quizzes for IBPS & SBI Exam so that you can practice more and more to crack the examination. This IBPS & SBI Exam special quiz series will mold your preparations in the right direction and the regular practice of these quizzes will be really very helpful in scoring good marks in the Examination. Here we are providing you the important question of reasoning ability for the IBPS & SBI Exam.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some questions.
There are three components to the UGC’s package governing the faculty. Of these, mostly two have proved to be bone of contention between the two parties. These have to do with the mandated workload for teachers and student evaluation of courses, including of the lecturer itself. But it is the third component that needs to be scrutinised for its suitability. This is the assessment of teacher performance on a range of activities, ideally centred on research, or what laypersons would recognise as the contribution made to the stock of our knowledge. As a measure of faculty performance, the UGC has devised the Academic Performance Indicator (API), which is the score the teacher has attained in all activities combined.
So how are we to arrive at what is a reasonable workload for our university teachers? I would have thought that it is obvious that in this globalised world of knowledge production, one approach would be to seek to approximate the global norm. Were we to do that, we would notice immediately that India’s college teachers have to teach far too much. They teach more hours per week and for more weeks in the year than their counterparts, at least in the Anglophhone world.
This is as far as the dissemination of knowledge is concerned. We are yet to address the creation of knowledge. It is not only that a heavy load of teaching crowds out the time left for research, but too much of teaching deadens the intellect which requires leisure and solitude to flourish. So while the UGC’s decision to not increase the workload may appear conciliatory, it must not lead us to overlook the possibility that the existing work norm itself may be unacceptably high.
A constructive suggestion is made here. Instead of approaching the problem from the perspective of a mandatory number of teaching hours, it could be viewed within a framework that starts out by setting the number of courses a teacher must teach in a year. The global benchmark is four courses, two being taught in each of the two semesters. Nevertheless, this would yet leave open the issue of the number of hours of lecture per course. Again, globally, the norm would be no more that 40 hours per course. I understand that in some universities in India it is as much as 60 hours per course, no doubt determined by the number of hours lecturers must teach per year. This approach has the consequence that students are now forced to attend far too many lectures.
As with teachers, so to for the students, too many lecture hours can be a disaster. Passive participation kills all creativity as there is no responsibility imposed on the student to engage. The student’s misery is compounded when the quality of lecturing is poor. The answer to both overworked teachers and deadened students is to drastically reduce the lecture hours. Back-of-the-envelope calculation based on the proposal that a teacher does four courses of 40 hours each in a year shows that India’s teachers, under present UGC norms, are teaching approximately a 100 per cent more than their peers. The consequence of this for the quality of our universities can be imagined.
The second of the bones of contention between the UGC and the teachers concerns student evaluation of courses. Surely students must be given the opportunity to assess the instruction they receive, in particular the quality of lectures. While there is scope for immaturity here, the answer to this is to take the evaluations with a pinch of salt, not to scrap them. The university needs to know how the courses that it offers are perceived so that course correction is possible. There is no substitute for student evaluation here. Teachers must learn to treat this as part of give and take. There is no professional or ethical ground on which they can refuse to stand up and be evaluated by their students. The UGC is right to recommend student evaluation of courses, even though we may argue over the metrics.
Finally, the third aspect of governance of our universities by the UGC. it is the most controversial component. Represented by the API, this prescribes minimum scores to be attained before a teacher can be considered for promotion. Mainly two elements are involved. One is the specification of a mandatory number of years to be spent in each category, between Assistant and full Professor, and the other is the assessment of research.
Both are problematic. There is absolutely no reason why the number of years of experience in a post should be a consideration in assessing a teacher’s intellectual progress. Things had been done differently in India in the last century. C.V. Raman came into the university from government and Amartya Sen had been made a full professor when he was all of 23 years. They went on to win Nobel Prizes
1 Which of the following options best expresses the meaning of the expression “bone of contention” as been given in the paragraph?
01. Cause of satisfaction
02. Agreement between two
03. Subject of dispute
04. Deep thinking
05. Dear to someone
2 Which of the following is the most similar to the word ‘scrutinize’ as given in the passage?
01. Ignore
02. Shun
03. Peruse
04. Overlook
05. Penetrate
3 Which of the following is the most similar to the word ‘Anglophone’ as given in the passage?
01. English loving
02. English hating
03. English speaking
04. English learning
05. English sphere
4 Which of the following is the most opposite in meaning to the word ‘leisure’ as given in the passage?
01. Sabbatical
02. Labour
03. Quiet
04. Honorarium
05. Vacation
5 Which of the following is the most opposite in meaning to the word ‘conciliatory’ as given in the passage?
01. Peaceable
02. Assuaging
03. Concurrence
04. Abduction
05. Resistant
6 Which of the following are components to the UGC’s package governing the faculty, according to the passage?
A. Evaluation of courses
B. Assessment of teacher’s performance
C. Years to be spent from assistant and full professor
D. dissemination of knowledge
01. Only A
02. Only B
03. Both A and C
04. Both A and B
05. All of the above
7 Which of the following statements is/are NOT TRUE in context of the passage?
01. Too much of teaching deadens the intellect
02. There are three components to the UGC’s package governing the faculty.
03. The second of the bones of contention between the UGC and the teachers concerns student evaluation of courses.
04. Amartya Sen had been made a full professor when he was all of 25 years old.
05. All are true
8 Which of the elements are involved in the third component which prescribes the minimum score to be attained by a teacher before considered for promotion?
01. Specification of a mandatory number of years to be spent in each category
02. The assessment of research
03. Creativity of the individual
04. Both 1 and 2
05. Not mentioned in the passage
9 Which of the following options does intellect need to flourish, according to the author?
01. Leisure
02. Solitude
03. Teaching
04. All except 3
05. All of the above
10 According to the passage what are the global norms for number of hours of lecture per course?
01. 40 hours per course
02. 50 hours per course
03. 60 hours per course
04. 100 hours per course
05. 35 hours per course
Answers:-
Q.1 (3)
Q.2 (3)
Q.3 (3)
Q.4 (2)
Q.5 (5)
Q.6 (4)
Q.7 (4)
Q.8 (4)
Q.9 (4)
Q.10 (1)
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