That liberal arts students have no concern for the real world is a weak claim
IN THIS ARTICLE
- about Liberal arts
- existential crisis’ facing classic liberal arts programmes
- liberal arts degrees face increasing criticism in policy discussions
- किस तरफ जा रहे लोग ताकि जॉब तो मिल सके ?
- नई ट्रेंड्स ......
- भारत के परिप्रेक्ष्य में
- scientific or technological subject कितना सही है
We are all too familiar with the recession of 2008 and its subsequent impact on the decline of the humanities and more generally, the liberal arts, in North America and Europe.
‘existential crisis’ facing classic liberal arts programmes
१ questions have often centred on their
- relevance
- whether they offer ‘real-world’ skills,
- career outcomes.
२ An article in The New Yorker का क्या कहना है ?
“The end of the English major”, published in 2023, argued that traditional liberal arts study has become the
- quaint province of a privileged elite,
- comprising students who do not expect a return on their investment and
- can afford to spend time on unremunerative pursuits’.
The ‘getting a job’ concern
liberal arts degrees face increasing criticism in policy discussions
for failing to
- equip students with the knowledge and the skills valued in the labour market,
- leading to inadequate financial returns on their educational investments.
किस तरफ जा रहे लोग ताकि जॉब तो मिल सके ?
graduates to pursue degrees in
- business,
- finance
- economics, in order to secure jobs.
अमेरिका के कुछ आंकड़े
The statistics are striking: in 1966
14% of all college graduates in the United States were majors in the humanities (central to the liberal arts); by 2010, that figure dropped by half to only 7%.
पहले कब तक अच्छा था यह विषय और आखिर क्या क्या सीखते है बच्चे :
liberal arts emerged in early modern Europe, as a means of avoiding manual labour or working with hands.
liberal arts , humanities with science
A liberal arts education that combined humanities with science was thought to produce a ‘thinking’ individual.
In many ways, the idea of a liberal arts education seems antithetical / विरोधात्मक to expectations of regional development that involves some technical training and knowledge.
Liberal arts make us human :
The skills that they cultivate in reasoning and critical thinking are every bit as important to future success in the workplace as
- learning to code,
- calculate,
- or raise capital.
To paraphrase the longest serving President of Harvard University, Charles Eliot, a liberal arts education teaches a student a little bit of everything, and a great deal of one thing.
नई ट्रेंड्स ......
Let us also note that while liberal arts is experiencing a decline in North America, it has seen a re-emergence in Europe and shows no sign of abating.
U.K., opened a new liberal arts programme
Only five years ago, the University of Nottingham, U.K., opened a new liberal arts programme, promising that this new initiative will enable students to explore what it means to be human.
Today more than 20 universities in the U.K. offer some form of liberal arts and sciences programme.
For some, this re-emergence has arisen partly as a corrective to the region’s more recent over-specialisation in education.
Towards the east, a decade ago, in Hong Kong
a major educational overhaul saw numerous institutions move from a British-style three-year degree model to a U.S.-style four-year model, with the aim of incorporating the greater breadth evident in a ‘liberal arts’ approach.
The idea is that specialised education can be supplemented with a humanistic approach to produce a well-rounded individual who practises critical thinking.
The world versus India ...
the promotion of liberal arts education
emerged within countries usually as a combination of indigenous educational reform movements and inchoate transnational advocacy networks.
liberal education prepares students
- well for life in a globalised, multicultural, society —
- makes them more aware of a variety of cultures
- and the need to communicate effectively across cultural differences;
- evaluate new ideas with evidence;
- formulate opinions, not make assumptions.
आज बच्चे क्या पढ़ना चाहते हैं ?
Today’s students also want an education that will address their
- desires for justice,
- service and
- self-expression, while equally wanting to develop the non-cognitive skills that will allow them to be successful in a globally competitive job market.
भारत के परिप्रेक्ष्य में
India offers an intriguing case in point
liberal arts education की तरफ झुकाव
For a nation where higher education has traditionally focused on professional courses, including engineering and medicine, the last couple of decades has witnessed a sudden interest in liberal arts education.
technical education अकेला पर्याप्त नहीं है ?
Businesses, non-governmental organisations, and government entities increasingly recognise that a discipline-specific technical education alone is not sufficient for the wholesome growth of the country’s economy and society.
‘Soft skills’
which can be honed through a classical liberal arts education, are crucial in this context.
While the rapid development of liberal arts in India has been welcomed by several
others ask — and, quite rightly
- whether students will get jobs after liberal arts training;
- whether liberal arts is suitable for a developing country;
- whether critical thinking skills help students solve India’s societal problems — poverty, hunger, caste, and class inequalities.
Preparing students to be global citizens
scientific or technological subject कितना सही है
Even for parents without the experience of studying for a degree, it does not take too much imagination to produce a ‘usefulness’ argument in favour of encouraging their children to take a scientific or technological subject. Even pure science holds out the prospect of a practical application one day.
But for the liberal arts, the arguments
The liberal arts impart the so-called soft skills associated with
- how to think for yourself,
- how to research and find things out for yourself,
- how to communicate the results to other people. And there is a lot of truth in this.
Employers highlight the communication skills and the creativity that liberal arts students bring to their workplaces and praise their ability to engage with multidisciplinary teams for effective problem-solving and creative thinking.
The technique of threading different kinds of content, conversations, and curriculum is the genius of the faculty in liberal arts institutions, who curate and incorporate the best of substance and knowledge in terms of interdisciplinary and experiential learning, the use of technology, and mentorship to attract young minds towards the best educational experience and to prepare them to be global citizens.
Evidently, we can no longer make the claim that liberal arts students have no concern for the real world. They are proving otherwise. They are taking over the world, one interwoven lesson at a time.
Source the hindu
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