Education market and society

Jyoti Sidana

Now the aim of research is not only to acquire knowledge but to acquire degree only. The major reason for this is also that without degrees, promotion in educational institutions has become impossible. When education deviates from its original purpose, how harmful can its consequences be, in the present times of crisis.
It can be understood.

There is a close relationship between research and development. On the basis of the results of research work, policies are made for development works. Therefore, research done in academic institutions is important from the point of view of overall development of the country. While discussing the science policy, once Professor Jayant Vishnu Narlikar said that the Government of India and various governments have established many research institutes to give direction to science and other research, so that a scientist can become a scientist with freedom of thought and action. able to operate in an autonomous environment.

But administrativeization of these institutions, loss of research jobs for young scientists, neglect of science and social science subjects in universities and comparatively low prestige of experts working in these areas are some aspects which are facing the development of India’s knowledge economy. present a serious challenge. The quality of research done in academic institutions has been questioned for the past few years. Also none of our universities has been able to achieve high rank in the global ranking. In such a situation, it is natural to ask whether the condition of research in higher educational institutions and universities is really so bad that it lacks elements like innovation, innovation, validity? If so why? Is this something to think about?

In the year 2020, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of scientific researches in the era of Kovid. If seen, more than one lakh research articles were published in various scientific journals. But what is worrying is that the multilevel intellectual review of these scientific articles has now come to an end, leading to an increase in academic fraud and unethical practices. Therefore, as the number of scientific research articles increased, the quality also declined. If seen, it is a matter of serious concern not only for the educational world but also for the development of society and nation.

There is no doubt that scientific research which should have developed with a definite result, is no longer being done. It seems that the current research, especially in the field of science, is engaged in providing only information that benefits the market. Whereas scientific information should be free from biases and personal values ​​and reliable, not market centric. During the epidemic, the news of the side effects of some medicines or the death of a patient due to a vaccine or a complete recovery from Kovid from a certain drug was in the headlines. Then later their refutations or explanations also kept coming out. Such information can come into existence only when a research paper is published without review by a group of experts concerned.

Such information left no stone unturned to create fear and confusion among the people in the society. As a result, such incidents also came to the fore, in which people gave their lives only because of fear and confusion before being hit by Kovid. Shouldn’t it be called academic dishonesty to make such misleading and false information public? No research or information, whether related to the field of medicine or political, religious, social or economic, should be made public without any intellectual review. It is the moral responsibility of the researcher and the informant. Otherwise, who will be responsible for the disorder and fear spreading in the society? This is a matter of consideration.

In this era, the number of online national, international seminars-conferences has also increased rapidly. Not only has there been a decrease in the discussion and analysis of subject experts but also the discussions and discussions on the subjects as a general public are increasing. Another challenge that has come to the fore is that it has become easy to get a certificate without attending the webinar, simply by paying the fee or simply by filling the informational form.

Because the API score depends on how many certificates of participation you have in academic programs, not on how many research articles you have submitted, their quality and current relevance. In the age of online webinars, everyone is busy collecting more and more certificates. Therefore, should it be assumed that this period of epidemic is a period of decline in research and theoretical discussion? And if it is indeed a period of decline, then it is not difficult to predict what will be the state of research in the post-pandemic period.