Professional Education for Social Development

What is a profession? Traditionally, most people would refer to engineering, medicine, law, accountancy and architecture as a profession. Is teaching a profession? What about music or sports? Professional musicians and sportspersons are supposed to be those who earn money through music and sports (unlike amateurs); does it mean that those musicians who are not mercenaries (ask for and get paid for their music) are less competent or behave in less professional manner?

And, how did management or IT become a profession? If history of professions is studied, it may be found that demand for certain types of services creates availability of a set of competencies; when these competencies are built through regular training and education, and certified as such, that area of expertise gets labeled as a profession. That is how IT and management became a profession in the past 3-4 decades. If market demands a set of skills, and pays for them well, does it acquire the status of a profession? These are troubling questions, more so in todayâs context where professional education seems to imply education in a profession.

Does it mean that those who acquire competencies in farming, water harvesting, plumbing, masonry, cooking etc through experience—learning by doing— are not professionals? Is certification from an educational institution necessary to be called a professional?

Most post-secondary educational provisions in different professions are recognized to be technical/professional if a government agency so certifies them. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in India is such a government agency. Its list of professions is the ‘usual suspectsâ—engineering, IT, accountancy, management, architecture, etc. Similar bodies exist for medicine and law. (It is another matter that such certifying bodies have all been mired with corruption and their CEOs are in prison for the same). AICTE doesnât acknowledge social development, environment, human rights and nutrition as professions. Therefore, educational provisions in fields of social development, environment, human rights and nutrition, for example, do not qualify for certification as professional education.

Unlike IT and management professions, the present economic development model in the country doesnât generate huge employment potential at well-paying jobs in such fields of expertise as social development, environment, human rights or nutrition. This can be best demonstrated from the fact that competent professionals required for working at the grass-roots level among rural and urban poor are not available for government programmes or NGO projects; the continued degradation of environment and persistent escalation of occupational and environmental health problems in the country have become accepted by the market as a cost for economic growth; violations of human rights of citizens is rampant by governmentâs security agencies as well as by corporate institutions; more than half the children below the age of five in India today are malnourished. It is unlikely that this model of economic growth will create demands for such expertise and decent jobs in the near future.

The present focus of policy reforms in the country are being entirely driven by market-led demand for engineers, computer-experts, managers, accountants, and the likes. The proposed Bill for establishing a Commission on Higher Education and Research in the country also emphasizes higher education in science, engineering, information technology, management and the like. National seminars on the reform of higher education (like those convened annually by FICCI) primarily discuss opening of new institutions, public-private partnerships and foreign collaboration in these technical/managerial disciplines alone. Why?

So, the question is, should policy reform be entirely driven by market considerations? What do we do about preparing professionals in social development? If market doesnât demand such professionals, should professional education for social development not be encouraged in India? This is the missing agenda for reforming post-secondary education in the country today. Policy and funding support are required to develop, continue and upgrade high quality professional education for social development. Professional education for social development has to be considered as a public good, and public support and funding is needed to expand its access and to improve its quality.

It is, therefore, important that educationists, development activists, environmentalists and others concerned with the upgradation of professional expertise in these areas of competencies find ways to collectively influence policy-makers to include such professional education in the present reforms urgently.

Rajesh Tandon
January 21, 2011