What is Curriculum?
Curriculum is a list of subjects included in a course of study. Curriculum is designed taking into consideration of the basic or core areas to be taught in a course; requirements of the organizations or institutions which are going to employ them; and give an insight into the latest developments and possible developments in the near future.
LIS Curriculum in India
In India most of the students of Ranganathan followed the pattern of Madras School (started by Ranganathan in 1931 at Madras University ) and that of the Delhi School (once again structured by Ranganathan in 1948). However there were some schools which differed from these schools. University of Bombay is one such example.
It is interesting to note that Dr Ranganathan himself adopted different syllabi at DRTC and uac. It appears that library science and documentation though he forcefully argued to be one and the same, he preferred separate courses probably as the consumers are different and people with different skills are to be developed separately .
Now we want library science, documentation techniques and information technology be mastered by each and every professionals during the same duration of the course. This resulted in several problems.
Before going to curriculum development, let us have a brief overview of the developments in the curriculum over the years.
Development of LIS Curriculum
Course Contents
Trends
The courses offered by the schools before 1950 comprehended papers on organization; administration; classification; cataloguing; bibliography; reference service; book selection; etc. Many schools included a paper on general knowledge.
*University Librarian & Head, Dept. of Library & Info Sc (Retd) Nagpur University , Nagpur . established. In order to expedite the matter, it established the CDC in UGC itself and appointed a committee under the Chairmanship of Prof P N Kaula. This committee with meetings held at Delhi and Pune for 12 days produced a fairly good report in 1992. This report has a historical review of LIS education, a status report on present trends, model curriculum for BLISc, MLISc, M Phil and guidelines for Ph D programmes.
UGC Model Curriculum (2001)
UGC had constituted a subject Panel in 1997 with Prof C R Karisiddappa as Convenor. This Panel at its second meeting held at Dharwad on 10th and 11th March 1998 discussed the CDC Report of 1992 .. and expressed their concern for immediate restructuring of CDC Report in the wake of rising impact of Information Technology on Libraries".
Thereafter Regional Meetings were held at Kurukshetra ( 12-13th November 1998 ); Bhubaneswar (9-lOth Dec. 1998); Osmania (29- 30th Dec 1998 ) and NERU (13- 14th April 1999 ). Somehow they failed to organize a meeting in the Western Region. .
Thereafter, the University Grants Commission constituted 3 Groups of Experts who met in UGC office New Delhi for reviewing the outcome of the various meetings and further sharpening of the modules and course contents. Prof C R Karisiddappa, Department of LIS, Karnataka University, Dharwad and Convenor, UGC Subject Panel on Library and Information Science, was identified as Nodal Person for these 3 meetings, and Dr Pandey S K Sharma, Senior Library and Information Officer, UGC and Link Officer of the Subject Panel as Secretary to the Committee.
Modules and course contents of different papers (or else, themes- to use their own terminology) were discussed and finalized during the meetings of the Groups.
Some Observations
In the UGCPanel of 1997 as many as 10 out of the 17 members were non teachers. Out of the 4 core Members of CDC only the Nodal Person is a teacher of LIS. Out of the 5 co-opted members, there is only one teacher. I do not mean that professional librarians cannot contribute for curriculum development. But my experience with practicing librarians in designing curriculum and for that matter teaching LIS is different. A few major problems, which can be noticed even in the UGC Model curriculum (2001) are:
1 Curriculum vis-à-vis practical needs;
2 Curriculum vis-à-vis duration;
3 Curriculum vis-à-vis availability of literature particularly in
languages;
4 Curriculum vis-a.,vis infrastructure facilities;
5 Balance in course content; etc.
regional CDC (1992) vs. MODEL CURRICULUM (2001)
Revision not substantial
It is said that the UOC Panel (1997) "expressed their concern for immediate restructuring of CDC Report in the wake of rising impact of Information Technology on Libraries". It is just 5 years before the CDC Report was published and the Panel expressed concern for its immediate restructuring. This made me to make an in depth study of the CDC Report and the Model Curriculum in terms of contents. I found almost all topics of Model Curriculum were found in the CDC Report in a more balanced way except the developments after 1990. Due to shortage of space and time I am not giving the details of my study here.
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A Critique of UGC Model Curriculum (2001) Shortcomings
Imbalance in Course Content Units
There is a glaring imbalance in the course content of different papers. The following table gives total number of units under each paper:
Paper number |
|
Units |
Paper number |
|
Units |
I |
- |
7 |
VIII |
- |
3 |
II |
- |
4 |
IX |
- |
6 |
III |
- |
4 |
X |
- |
4 |
IV |
- |
6 |
XI |
- |
3 |
V |
- |
9 |
XII |
- |
8 |
VI |
- |
6 |
XIII |
- |
6 |
VII |
- |
2 |
|
|
|
It is evident from the above table that the number of units range from as low as 2 to as many as 9.
Fringe subjects like 'Management' and 'Research Methodology' have maximum number of Units (9 and 8 respectively). Some of the core subjects have been reduced drastically.
Some of the units are too heavy, where as, some Units (2 in number) lack elaboration. There are 9 units which have one line elaboration; where as, 10 of them have only two lines of details.
Topics
There is also a wide variation in the number of topics elaborated under each unit. The following table gives total number of topics elaborated under each paper: Paper I
Paper Topic
1 - 24
2 - 27
3 - 7
4 - 8
5 - 48
6 - 18
7 - 2
8 - 8
9 - 4
10 - 4
11 - 9
12 - 47
13 - 22
From the table above, it can be noticed that the topics range from 2 to 48. It seems each expert contributed a few topics under different papers which remained unserutinised, resulting too many topics some of which are unnecessary. Some times I wonder whether we object to prepare librarians or management specialists or sociologists and the like.
Repetitions
There are several repetitions of topics under different papers. For example, user studies appear under Paper VI as well as VIII. Unit 3 under Paper VIII is repeated under Paper (VII). Intellectual property rights appear under Paper I as well as in Paper IX. Information retrieval is listed under Paper II and Paper XI. So is the case with subject headings and subject cataloguing. These confuse the teachers and taught.
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Some Specific Observations
Paper - I
1) There is a heading "Normative Principles of Library and Information Science" wherein only five laws were discussed.
2) Networking should have been confined to public libraries.
3) Intellectual property rights, patents and censorship should have been covered under Unit 4.
4) Library path finders should have been covered under Paper V.
Paper-II
1 ) Structure and forms of entries should have been specified.
2) Services like national bibliographies, CIP, union catalogues are missing. Need and purpose of classification be added.
3) Need and purpose of classification be added
4) Design and development of classification schemes is no more needed.
Paper-III
1) Bias towards CC in Unit 1 needs correction
2) The concept of complex documents (Unit 3) needs elaboration.
Paper-IV
1) Selection of hardware and software; setting-up of a system and its management will be useful.
2)Trends in library automation in India is worth considering.
Paper - V
1) Governance of the library and Role of Library Committee shall be useful. The course content should be pruned to the extent possible.
Paper- VI and VII
1) It is a matter of regret that the concept of reference service has been treated shabbily. . Kinds of reference service; steps in ready reference service; qualities of a reference librarian, etc. should be elaborated.
Paper - VIII
1) All aspects of users - categories, needs, information seeking behaviors, user studies, even user education/ training be brought together at one place.
Paper - X and XI
1) Paper X does no.t warrant a full-length status. If possible Paper- X and Paper XI may be telescoped into one paper.
Paper-XII
1) Too elaborate. Efforts need to be made to reduce the details which have not much direct bearing on library and information studies.
Paper-XIII
1) Fairly good. Some details are not of immediate bearing ( for example POP3 CK, Formats- 180 - 9660 DVD etc) may be dropped.
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Issues in curicullum development
1) Uniformity in curriculum
Some specialists of LIS education are of the open ion that there should be uniformity in LIS education throughout the country. The efforts of the UGC in setting-up CDCs in various disciplines and bringing out Model Curricula indicates its leaning towards centralization. But, some problems with this centralized effort are:
1) Lack of continued effort;
2) The expertise of the experts is doubtful;
3) Non availability of basic norms with regard to number of papers, number of units in a paper; topics! subjects under each unit; etc.
4) Lack of standards regarding cloak-hours required for teaching, load of practical component, class work and assignments, laboratory facilities required; etc.
Freedom in Adoption
The 'Model Curriculum' should only be a model and there should not be any effort to force its implementation. After all, universities are autonomous and each university has a Board of Studies consisting of experts.
Continued Effort
There should be a continuous effort in monitoring the developments in the discipline; ills and wells in the course contents of different papers; suggestions from teachers with regard to the utility, sustainability, duration of teaching each topic, additions and deletions needed (in one's own opinion), etc.
National Body
UGC may identify anyone university department as 'Curriculum Development Centre' which will interact with other library schools, gather suggestions, put the suggestions to a national debate. Let the 'model' be implemented in a few lead schools, and finally release it for adaptation by library schools. Thus there should be "decentralized in-put and centralized output". Feedback from consumers-universities, research organizations, government departments, etc may also be taken to make the curriculum need based.
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About the author
Dr PSG Kumar
Our today's speaker Dr PSG Kumar was born in 9th June 1946 and brought up in Bapatla, a town in Andhra Pradesh. His initial education gave him lot many opportunities to develop and also nourish his many skills and interests found rarely in a person. Those who know his past, know well that he possess a multifaceted personality. For example like his father he has been an actor and took part in a number of dramas, he has been a play-write and penned quite a few dramas for the theatrical group he was a member of, he has been a painter and painted quite a few paintings, he has been a banner writer as well, he has been a makeup man and given services to a drama group, he has been a sculptor, an idol of Lord Ganesha made of paper pulp is a fine piece of craftsmanship, he has been a cartoonist, a photograph editor, an organizer of electioneering campaign and possesses. many such other hobbies. He would have certainly shined in any of the above branches, but he was destined to be a Librarian and Library Teacher of excellence.
An incident in his life proved to be a turning point. After passing his matriculation in 1961 he joined HCF Ltd Hyderabad in 1962. One day it so happened that he fell asleep and got late to his duty and was produced before the Administrative Officer who had a look on him and asked Kumar to go. This made Kumar feel uneasy. He decided at that very time not to stand before any one like guilty and in fact should be on the other side of the table as Administrator. Having decided so, he quit the job and joined the College of Arts and Commerce for his PUC at Bapatla in 1963. He graduated with Agriculture as a major and applied for admission to B Lib Sc at Andhra University Department of Library Science, Waltair. The Andhra University Department was little hesitant in granting him admission as the Faculty was in double mind whether to give him a seat or not as agriculture graduates in those days were in hot demands. The Department was not sure whether Kumar will stick to Library Science. Some how he was granted admission and passed the examination with flying colours. During this period he correspondenced with Dr S R Ranganathan which lasted till his demise in 1972. For doing his MLIS he came to BHU and passed the examination and topped the list of examinees. He earned his PhD from Gulbarga University .
He has taught Library Science at IT College Lucknow, Banaras Hindu University , and Nagpur University . He has travelled extensively and written profusely. He has surpassed all as regards writings is concerned. He has been at the top of Library Associations. ILA, JOCLAI, GOC, Nagpur University Teachers Association, Vidarbha Academic Library Association, IATLIS, LASSARC are only a few such organizations to cite. He has actively participants in COMLA, IFLA, and FID. At Nagpur University he has presided over Heads Forum, has been Registrar of the University, and University Librarian of the University, and Head of the Department of Library & Information Science.
