Many teachers are now working at TU, the oldest university in Nepal, and at different colleges affiliated to TU on a part-time basis. Four rounds of talks have been held between the agitating group and the TU executive body since November 18. But these rounds of talks failed to change the mind of those who give protection to the bad intellectual culture through the power they wield. The executive body is still remiss in the demand of the agitating group for the cancellation of the agreement the government and the part-time teachers reached in August. Its cavalier attitude towards their demand made them take some further actions. Doing so is the only option they have to pressurize upon the concerned body to have their demand met. They locked the main gate of the office of the Vice-Chancellor (VC), the VC office, and the offices of the Register and the TU Service Commission. Though they unlocked the main gate of the office of the Vice-chancellor some days ago, they said they would not stop locking the VC office and the offices of the Register and the TU Service Commission until their demand is met.
The way they were employed on a part-time basis was arbitrary. Nepotism, favoritism, and cronyism were used as the criteria for employing them. They were employed without "selection". They were not selected from a mass of competitors but were directly employed by the college administration as if the college were owned by the college chief. They are not the best of those who are willing to pursue an academic career. This is why those who think they are capable of working as an ideal university teacher are expressing their disagreement with the agreement in the form of movement.
This is historic not only in terms of time consideration but also in terms of issue consideration. It is not similar to other student movements Nepal witnessed in the past in respect of the demand it has raised. If it is similar to them, it is only in the sense that it is being launched by the students and they were also launched by the students.
This movement cannot be criticized on the grounds that the issue it has raised is unimportant. However, this is bound to attract criticism if it confines itself to the demand it has raised now. The demand it has raised is that the agreement reached between the part-time teachers and the government should be rescinded. Prima facie, it would seem that they are worried about this agreement in that they take it as the end of the possibility or little possibility of them getting an opportunity to be employed as university teacher. But, I believe that they relish rescinding the agreement not because they are worried about their career but because they are worried about the future of the university education as a whole. Their worry stems from their having gained the apprehension of the fact that the implementation of the agreement will result in the retardation of intellectual progress in the country. The way university teachers at TU are employed forms just part of what I prefer to call "intellectual corruption". As is obvious from this, this movement is not against the intellectual corruption in Nepal as a whole but against part of it only.
Let me explain what I mean by the phrase “intellectual corruption" to help you fathom my argument. Corruption is a term applied to a kind of behavior, which is personally advantageous but socially detrimental, and therefore socially unacceptable. I have used the term “corruption” in this sense. By the term “intellectual corruption” I mean a set of demeanors shown by intellectuals, or those who are wrongly regarded as intellectual and also those who wield the official power to influence the educational sector, which make it impossible for what may be called “intellectual progress” to take place.
The set of behaviors that characterize those who wallow in the intellectual corruption appertain to the way university teachers are appointed, the way they are promoted, the way they teach, and the way carry out their duty other than teaching.
Now, let me discuss intellectual corruption in Nepal in brief. If we are to think without going beyond the fact that university teachers in Nepal are appointed and promoted through a competition, we may think that there is nothing wrong with the process involved in their appointment and promotion. To understand that there is something wrong with that process, we must go beyond this rather misleading fact, and enter into the question of what lies behind this competition. The kind of competition through which they are appointed and promoted is not the competition proper. This may perhaps be rightly described as “the so-called competition”. It is no more than a cover used for concealing the impartial appointment decision made without taking into account the competitive strength of the applicants.
Teachers at a university have a responsibility not only to teach knowledge already produced but also to produce new knowledge. Those teachers who are not capable of producing new knowledge have no moral right to occupy the most challenging and sensitive position of a university teacher without doing the most important thing they are expected to do-the production of knowledge. Most university teachers in Nepal have not proved to the intellectually conscious people that they produced new knowledge and also that they are likely to produce. If they had not been allowed to occupy the position they are holding now, and those who are capable of producing new knowledge had been appointed in stead of them through the competition proper, as opposed to what I call “the so-called competition”, perhaps there might not have been the knowledge gap we see now, or at least, the knowledge gap we see now might not have been as big as it is now.
They do not teach knowledge already produced in a way that is as complete as “practically possible”. The nature of knowledge they are required to teach is, in general, so comprehensive, and deep that it is impossible to teach it within the period of time fixed in the course of study in such a way that there will be nothing left to be taught. What is left after their teaching is still comprehensive and deep. Teaching “in a way that is as complete as practically possible” means teaching seriously as much as it is practically possible within the period of time specified.
They explain their inadequate teaching by saying that it is the responsibility of an ideal student to lean what is left after they finish teaching without taking help from their teachers. By the “inadequate teaching”, I mean the teaching in which they teach less than it is practically possible within the period of time fixed in the course of the study.
They do not want to account for their inadequate teaching by saying the reason why they teach in a way that is “deliberately inadequate”. They argue for the inadequacy in their teaching by putting forward the ostensible reason behind this in such a way that implicitly implies that it is not necessary for them to teach in a way that is “practically adequate”. Why do they ostensibly explain the “deliberate inadequacy in their teaching? They want to explain this by saying what they do not really think because they are fastidious about proving to others that they are an ideal teacher. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their ostensible explanation for the inadequacy for their teaching is an endeavor to distract our attention from what may be called “intellectual corruption”. Their false explanation is an effort to take our attention away from the kind of a university teacher envisioned by great statistician Karl Pearson. As Egon S. Pearson puts it,
“Karl Pearson used to say that he believed that a university teacher ought to give every year one new course on a subject which he had not prepared for lecturing before; only so would he prevent himself from becoming stale and talk with a freshness of approach (Pearson, 1978, preface)”.
They do not teach students even the old course-the course that has yet to be updated - in a way that is as complete as practically possible. What I call “the deliberate inadequacy” in their teaching is a precondition for their being able to give time on other remunerative activities other than teaching, and also on teaching at many private colleges to the detriment of the students studying at the university or the college where they work as a permanent, or “so-called” full-time teacher. What made me think that it is appropriate to use the adjective “so-called” before the phrase “full-time teacher” is that they take fewer classes even than part-time teachers. Teaching in a way that is deliberately inadequate, and being the kind of a university teacher Karl Pearson envisioned are obstacles to their desire to benefit from the intellectual corruption.
There are many cases in which those teachers who have an authority to appoint new university teachers made unfair appointment decision. What underlies behind the intellectual corruption in such a form? One of the reasons is that they want to ensure that they produce university teachers as their heirs who share with them a tendency to be silent adherents of the intellectual corruption. Producing the heirs who do not share with them this tendency is great threat to their existence as a university teacher. It is only through the so-called competition that they can produce teachers with a desire to perpetuate the culture of the intellectual corruption” for personal aggrandizement.
University teachers in Nepal do no more than teach a very insignificant portion of the subject they are required to teach. Generally, it is true to say that they do not get involved in the process involved in the production of genuine future scholars. Teaching a very insignificant portion of the subject without doing any other thing is not what an ideal university teacher does. They neither think themselves nor cause the students to think. I have used the term “think” in its strictest sense, or in the sense of what is called “reflective thinking”, or in the sense implicitly implied in the following statements:
“In the widest sense of the word “thinking”, everyone thinks. In the strictest sense in which “to think” means “to think logically”. Some people never think, and none is always thinking even when he appears to be doing so (Stebbling, 1950, p 5).”
“ Thinking, we have seen, essentially consists in solving a problem. The ability to think depends upon the power of seeing connexions. Reflective thinking consists in pondering upon a given set of facts so as to elicit their connexions…The mere addition of one fact to another would be of little value for reflective thinking (ibid. p 4)”.
Almost all of the major political parties (Maoist, royalist, democratic, or otherwise) seem to be reluctant to countenance this movement. Most of them except CPN (Maoist) wielded power in the past through which they institutionalized intellectual corruption. Most leaders in the present royalist political party were in a position of authority during the 30-years-long autocratic Panchayat regime. The intellectual corruption that is extant now in Nepal is also attributable to their certain behavior. Likewise, most of the leaders in Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (UML) also deserve bitter criticism as a response to their action that consolidated intellectual corruption. Once they found themselves in a higher position of authority, which was a golden opportunity to wipe out intellectual corruption. But, they preferred intellectual corruption to intellectual progress. Because opposing intellectual corruption that exists now is opposing their own past bad behavior, these political parties do not want to take part in this movement, and also do not want it to gain momentum. Student leaders are also turning their blind eye to this movement. The reason is self-explanatory. They have also played a crucial role in appointing most of the part-time teachers without selection. I think they are not so stupid that they agitate against their own irresponsible past action.
There can be no doubt that there are some leaders in all political parties and in their sister organizations who are strongly opposed to intellectual corruption. They fear to oppose intellectual corruption because their opposition may lead to their exclusion from the organization. So, it is hard to believe that they do something to add some force (force in the form of pressure exerted by the involvement in the movement) to the ongoing movement.
Works Cited
Stebbing, L. Susan.1950. A Modern Introduction to Logic. New York and Evanston: Harper Torch Book/ The Science Library, p 4 and 5
Pearson, E.S. (ed). 1978. The History of Statistics in the 17th & 18th Centuries against the Changing Background of Intellectual, Scientific, and religious Thought: Lectures by Karl Pearson given at University College London during the academic sessions 1921-1933. London& High Wycombe: Charles Griffin & Co.Ltd, preface
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