A strike in 1986 raised issues now come to a head in
SPA. Later TVB was set up, after some breakaway
faculty joined a group that recommended a ?habitat
college? model for more responsive education and went
on to set up TVB and make breakaway teaching, rule
bending and unhealthy competition trendy. The ?90s
were bad years for professional education.
Professional practice also saw pre-/post-retirement
consultancies (including legitimizing professional
space activity ? rather, grabbing ? by funded NGOs,
MNCs, donors) and self-promotion in media by
professional trustees (including by obfuscating the
growing specializations), all of which marginalized
young practices, especially in specialization areas.
At the same time, professional discourse saw the same
few endlessly saying nothing about everything,
endorsing global paradigms in an echo chamber,
marginalizing ?dissent? and driving professional
thought to mediocrity. The ?90s saw also limited
ascendancy of the entrepreneurial young professionals
who figured out the ropes to build bridges to
bilateral and multi-national corporate and NGO
entities, besides to politicians, to leverage
mainstream space to practice as well as teach. All in
all, the ?90s saw business interests of some
professionals aligning with those undermining the
professions, ?control? of the professions passing to
this alliance and the professions becoming sick, ready
for takeover to turn into sweatshops for global
practices. In time for GATS.
Sounds bizarre?
Lets start some place else then, some place healthy. I
posit the following. In healthy profession business,
career (standing in and of the profession) and
vocation (public interest) aspects of practice are all
viable and, importantly, only so if not in conflict.
Thus, say, business detrimental to career (profession,
not just individual professional) concerns or contrary
to public interest is also made unviable. In healthy
profession qualification, rigour/quality and
ethic/responsibility aspects of education are in
synergy with practice. Qualifications set boundaries
of business one may and may not do, rigour ensures
business serves profession goals, and ethic ensures it
serves public interest. In healthy profession
regulators ? statutory CoA, institutional IIA/ITPI,
discourse/media ? ensure all aspects of practice and
education are in harmony, primarily by ensuring that
premium is always and only on professional competence
in its widest sense, and that sanctity of professional
space is not breached or undermined. In healthy
profession trade opportunities are not assessed in
terms of mere economic cost-benefit for professionals
but in terms of cost-benefit for professional space,
and terms of global trade are set neither by global
diktat nor simplified across-sectoral policy but on
basis of careful consideration of implications for
professional space, its harmony and sanctity.
So? How?s your professional space - sick or healthy?
I think things have been bad and have collapsed ? into
a window of opportunity that planning and architecture
students / young professionals are uniquely positioned
to take advantage of. Happenings in SPA / TVB and
elsewhere entitle you to demand a healthy profession.
The coincidence of GATS, also really about your
future, is most opportune. It is rare, this moment,
and I hope you do not miss it.
With this mail, which I?d like you to forward to
others too, I formally offer advisory services. Please
see the previous mail on this list for more about
this.
Regards,
Gita Dewan Verma / Planner
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
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SPA. Later TVB was set up, after some breakaway
faculty joined a group that recommended a ?habitat
college? model for more responsive education and went
on to set up TVB and make breakaway teaching, rule
bending and unhealthy competition trendy. The ?90s
were bad years for professional education.
Professional practice also saw pre-/post-retirement
consultancies (including legitimizing professional
space activity ? rather, grabbing ? by funded NGOs,
MNCs, donors) and self-promotion in media by
professional trustees (including by obfuscating the
growing specializations), all of which marginalized
young practices, especially in specialization areas.
At the same time, professional discourse saw the same
few endlessly saying nothing about everything,
endorsing global paradigms in an echo chamber,
marginalizing ?dissent? and driving professional
thought to mediocrity. The ?90s saw also limited
ascendancy of the entrepreneurial young professionals
who figured out the ropes to build bridges to
bilateral and multi-national corporate and NGO
entities, besides to politicians, to leverage
mainstream space to practice as well as teach. All in
all, the ?90s saw business interests of some
professionals aligning with those undermining the
professions, ?control? of the professions passing to
this alliance and the professions becoming sick, ready
for takeover to turn into sweatshops for global
practices. In time for GATS.
Sounds bizarre?
Lets start some place else then, some place healthy. I
posit the following. In healthy profession business,
career (standing in and of the profession) and
vocation (public interest) aspects of practice are all
viable and, importantly, only so if not in conflict.
Thus, say, business detrimental to career (profession,
not just individual professional) concerns or contrary
to public interest is also made unviable. In healthy
profession qualification, rigour/quality and
ethic/responsibility aspects of education are in
synergy with practice. Qualifications set boundaries
of business one may and may not do, rigour ensures
business serves profession goals, and ethic ensures it
serves public interest. In healthy profession
regulators ? statutory CoA, institutional IIA/ITPI,
discourse/media ? ensure all aspects of practice and
education are in harmony, primarily by ensuring that
premium is always and only on professional competence
in its widest sense, and that sanctity of professional
space is not breached or undermined. In healthy
profession trade opportunities are not assessed in
terms of mere economic cost-benefit for professionals
but in terms of cost-benefit for professional space,
and terms of global trade are set neither by global
diktat nor simplified across-sectoral policy but on
basis of careful consideration of implications for
professional space, its harmony and sanctity.
So? How?s your professional space - sick or healthy?
I think things have been bad and have collapsed ? into
a window of opportunity that planning and architecture
students / young professionals are uniquely positioned
to take advantage of. Happenings in SPA / TVB and
elsewhere entitle you to demand a healthy profession.
The coincidence of GATS, also really about your
future, is most opportune. It is rare, this moment,
and I hope you do not miss it.
With this mail, which I?d like you to forward to
others too, I formally offer advisory services. Please
see the previous mail on this list for more about
this.
Regards,
Gita Dewan Verma / Planner
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com