Bhubaneswar: The Director of the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) here Prof Sudhakar Panda has demanded the abolition of coaching centres, holding them responsible for ruining the future of the students.
He said 90 per cent of the students who enrol in these centres end up nowhere as the limited number of technical seats help only 10 per cent get admission. The coaching centres only encourage the students to crack the entrance test but lay little emphasis on building their fundamentals in science.
Prof Panda, who is also the director of Institute of Physics was speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day national conference on ‘Science and Technology of Functional Materials at the Siksha O Anusandhan Deemed to be University here on Friday.
The national conference has been organised by the Department of Physics of the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), SOA’s faculty of engineering, in collaboration with International Academy of Physical Sciences (IAPS), Allahabad.
Prof. Panda observed that lack of focus and objectivity has crippled scientific research in the country. He said research funding agencies often wanted to know about the research work being done or where it was taking the research scholars, “but I’m afraid we don’t yet know what we are trying to do. How can scientific research prosper in such an atmosphere?” he asked.
While the question of India winning a Nobel was being asked at the higher level, those in the middle were unaware where they were and those at the bottom had made a mess of their careers before reaching the level of research scholars, he said.
The problem lay with the propensity of guides to churn out Ph.D scholars and pile up research papers which helped their own careers but did not contribute to the growth of science, Prof. Panda said.
Prof. P.K.Bajpai, Dean of School of Physical Sciences, Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur and Vice-President of IAPS said that though a researcher might not be aware of details of another domain, there was the need to explore and understand other fields, he said adding it was more important to understand than learn.
Prof. P.K. Sahu, Dean of ITER, presided over the inaugural function which was also addressed by Prof. P.K.Nanda, SOA’s Dean (Research and Development), Prof. R.N.P. Choudhury, Convenor of the conference, Prof. P.C. Das, Head of Department of Physics, Prof. S.K. Kamilla of the Department of Physics and Dr. R.N. Panda, Organising Secretary of the conference.
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