Mix and match

Delhi University makes a welcome move towards investing in inter-disciplinary study

Delhi University makes a welcome move towards investing in inter-disciplinary study

Delhi University is tilting towards the US model of higher education,with four-year academic courses. Students will be granted qualifications according to time spent,with an honours degree requiring the full four years. Students can design their own courses with mix-and-match options across the traditional streams of arts,science and commerce,and they will be awarded a baccalaureate degree if their course is weighted in favour of the humanities and a BTech if science is the focus. Either way,they will be exposed to disciplines outside of their preferred stream. This exercise in standardisation that invests in interdisciplinary study could produce graduates who are more innovative and creative in ways that specialists working on their own are unlikely to be.

The university campus favours interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation. Perhaps one of the original motives for gathering together colleges specialising in diverse disciplines,and locating them on a single campus,was to encourage the branches of human knowledge to step out of their comfort zones and see how the other half lives. However,this ideal has been compromised through the 20th century,in which disciplines have become specialised and attenuated to the point that conversation with other disciplines becomes difficult if not improbable. At the same time,disciplines with immediate utility,such as chemistry and engineering,have been valorised over subjects whose utility is long-term and unpredictable,creating a caste system on campus. The geneticist is valued over the sociologist and the computer scientist over the linguist. Creativity has been the casualty.

DUs proposed renaming of its science degree to BTech appears to perpetuate this division by utility,suggesting that technology is more valuable or monetisable than science. But the tilt towards multi-disciplinary exposure is welcome. Interdisciplinary work is not promoted enough and,frequently,it is really mathematical modelling by another name. The success of mathematics in this role indicates how valuable interdisciplinary work can be. The extent to which it is embedded in economics could not have been anticipated 50 years ago and 20 years from now,it could be as important for the life sciences. A model for higher education that offers exposure across multiple streams of knowledge will produce unpredictable but substantial benefits in future.