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Institutions | Training | Online Education | Papers / Articles
Higher Education in Spatial Information Industry:
A case for promoting mutual interest in geography at University level
Seema M. Parihar
Reader in Geography, Kirori Mal College
University of Delhi.
parihars@vsnl.com
("I (Demers,
1999)1 invite all of you to become geographers, if not by vocation then by avocation. GIS is about thinking geographically. Beyond being an essential component of GIS, geography also opens new avenues of examining and analyzing the world around us. More importantly, it provides us with totally new appreciation of everyday life and the environment in which we live it".)
India has one of the largest `Higher Education Systems
in the world'. As on October 1, 2001 there were 237 Universities, 46
Deemed Universities, 3.31 lakhs Teachers, 10,600 Colleges and as many as
70.78 lakhs Students in India (UGC, 2001)2 . But even with this
magnitude of strength and efficacy it is now at crossroads. The road that
began in 1857, when Universities were started in three Presidency towns is
still trapped in merit/ non-merit categorisation debate. A discussion
paper entitled `Government subsidies in India' declared higher education
as a `non-merit good'3. Non-merit goods are not deemed worthy
of government subsidy: as the discussion paper puts it, "subsidies are
advocated when the social benefits of a particular service or commodity
are greater than the sum of private benefits to the
consumers"4. The key question this paper aims to address is -
What is, or what should be the role of Higher Education within Spatial
Information Industry (SII) through Universities and Colleges or vice
versa? In fact, should and can they in this respect have a significant
role at all and if so, what this role should be? Can unexplored territory
of Geography Department be explored by SII? Spatial Information Industry
in this paper need to be understood as any type of industry that directly
or indirectly relies on spatial information. Another key word, higher
education mainly refers to general education and not professional
education and in most instances it refers to geography education in
University and colleges. . It further aims to elaborate the ways and means
by which students and faculty of Geography in University and Colleges
together can maximize benefits for both academic institutes and SII and at
the same time society through mutual interactions. When `Globalism' and
`internationalism' are used in the context of Higher education5
can Geography Departments remain divorced from industry?
Set-up? The present paper is organized in four sections. The first section explores the reasons for SII to be interested in Geography Departments in University and College level. The second section presents the essence for collaborating SII with Geography Departments amidst changing societal needs and state funding. The third section illustrates the reasons that stop industry in making use of already existing spatial knowledge base with strong theoretical foundation in Indian Universities and Colleges. The final section enunciates the future line of action for mutual interactions.
Gains for Spatial Information Industry (SII)
A nation's wealth of spatial data is vast and of increasing use to developers and planners at all levels of operation in both the public and private sectors. Geographers with inherent Cartography skills and additional acquisition of spatial tools like GIS and Remote Sensing prepares a fertile ground for SII to explore.
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