In a heartening display of moving forward with the times, the University of Pune has not only published a new textbook to match the recently updated syllabus for first year Maths for B.Sc. and B.A., but they have made the entire textbook available online as a free download, reports Pune Mirror.
This is a great step forward. Students who are used to the slow moving and bureaucratic education systems in India, will notice three unique characteristics that should make them happy,
- It is online
- It is free
- They are soliciting feedback and suggestions for improvements, which they claim they will incorporate in future versions
Any one of these would have been cause for celebration. All three is just too much.
No wonder University of Pune has been picked by the government of India as 1 of the 4 universities to get Rs. 300CR “National Innovative University” scheme.
Excerpts from the article:
In the absence of a single prescribed textbook, Bachelor of Science (B Sc) students studying under the University of Pune (UoP) have always had to shuffle between various reference books. With the Board of Studies realising this issue, the varsity’s Department of Mathematics has compiled an official mathematics textbook .
Not only is such an effort the first of its kind, it has also been uploaded on the University’s website for free download.
According to Dr S A Katre, Head of Department, Mathematics at UoP,
“During the process, we decided to go a step ahead and considering the changing times, came up with an online textbook.”
and
“It is for the first time that an official University textbook is made available online for free,”
And, most importantly, this is just the first step. There is more to come:
The book could be found for download at http://math.unipune.ac.in/FyBsc.htm. The department is now working on the books for the second term and will gradually take out books for further terms. Soon, the entire bunch of textbooks, particularly designed by adhering to the new syllabus for mathematics, will be ready online.
Great initiative. The NCERT (http://www.ncert.nic.in/) has published its books online for free download for a long time. These are wonderful textbooks for 1-12 and can be accessed here: http://ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm
This is a great initiative by NCERT, as all the syllabi in the country have to use this as a guideline. Unfortunately, by the time it comes to the SSC textbooks, the content is diluted. This is a great reference for parents and teachers who are looking for quality.
Hope Pune Univ improves but don’t get overexcited about it.
I’ve personally experienced this univ when I “tried” to do a PhD here, partly out of noble intentions of doing world-class research here.
(I had come back with degrees and work experience in developed countries).
Alas, I didn’t know how pathetic an experience was in store for me and I dropped out after giving it my best try.
Nikhil,
Tell me the last time NCERT, CBSE, etc worried about the education of a poor village/Adivasi boy or girl living in hinterland of Maharashtra.
They’ve NEVER bothered with universal access to education. Their schools and syllabi are for kids of babus living in nice secluded colonies in our large cities and more recently high brow city schools have started converting to CBSE because SSC is too downmarket for them.
Note that SSC and Balbharti have to worry about the education of the poorest children whose both parents may be illeterate.
There is a reason SSC textbooks are diluted and simple. They take into account below average teachers, zero environment for learning, and even things like production cost of books.
Welcome initiative !. I just checked one book. Seem to be missing Copyright information (for more info see http://creativecommons.org/).
@A123 Sad to hear that you had bad experience, would be great if you could blog about it. It is true that doing a real world class research in India remains hard proposition, for the lack of “hospitable” environment.