ATTENDING AN ORIENTATION COURSE 35 of a University are the three Cs—the Creation, Conservation and Communication of knowledge. Indeed, we are tempted to conjecture that such information is redundant even to the most inexperienced teacher. 2. The lecture schedule for this particular course utilized time very badly. There were 2 lectures of 1 hour each a day, each followed by one-and-a-half hours for discussions. Originally, the scheduled time was 3 hours for each session and it was only on active intervention by the participants that the schedule was restructured. Even with two-and-a-half hours however, sessions usually had to be dragged on to meet the time allotted as most lectures did not generate material for discussion. On several afternoons when scheduled speakers did not arrive, we were not permitted to leave, but were 'kept busy* by the Course Director, who took session after session to inform us that a good teacher prepares her lectures, 'has mastery over her subject* and so on. We wonder what the financial advantages are in dragging out the Course for a month and in keeping us 'busy*. We were told by the Course Director that the UGC spends Rs.l lakh on each such course. 3. The topics for the lectures were, by and large, platitudinous and repetitive. For instance: a) Education and Development b) Role of Higher Education in the Development process. c) Higher Education and the Transmission of values. d) Coming to the University: A way of life. e) Imparting knowledge: Lectures f) Imparting knowledge: Projects and Practicals g) Imparting knowledge: Tutorials and Preceptorials. As a result, lectures were, most often, little more than embroidered bio-data (full of references to trips abroad and encounters with grateful students) or a string of rhetorical questions and hackneyed platitudes such as Teachers should know the psychology of youth' One of the speakers actually said at the beginning of his lecture - 'Let me say something to utilize the time*. This was precisely the spirit in which most speakers functioned. Dr. D.S. Kothari, for example, actually dictated (with punctuation) 3 quotations from Einstein, Buddha and Gandhi. These quotations were repeated and explained several times. We give one of the quotations below, so that it can speak for itself—'Keep good comradeship and work with love and without preconceived ideas. Then you will be happy* (Einstein) 3.1 On the other hand, resource people whom we could have engaged in meaningful dialogue were hamstrung by the vagueness of the topics assigned to them. For instance. Prof. Y.