A Professor Who Lived Until His Last Breath!

A FOND REMEBERANCE BY DR. RAVI SANKAR S. NAIR (March2010)

Prof. N. Vedamani Manuel who served the Department of Education, the University of Kerala for over twenty years was the quintessential professor of Education for a generation of students. His immense erudition, ability to apply pedagogical principles to a variety of subjects ranging from Chemistry to Musicology, uncanny knack for establishing conceptual links between subjects as different as Mathematics and Literature and  his constant quest for novel and unorthodox approaches to educational practices made him stand out among the academics of his  generation. True to the adage that a teacher never retires, the fascination for classroom teaching never left him. After his retirement from the University, he taught at many schools in Waynad and Palghat districts, on a voluntary basis, to help low-achieving students. Prof. Manuel was a true polymath whose scholarship in education, philosophy, psychology, Sangam literature, English literature, Biblical studies and musicology had amazed many. He had an admirable command on/over Russian, French and German, in addition to a reading knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hindi and Kannada. Another consuming passion in his life was music. He was a competent violinist and was well versed with the Carnatic and Western musical systems. A passionate teacher and research guide, Prof. Manuel left a deep impression on his students.

Vedamani Maunel was born on 24^th August 1923 at Sawyerpuram, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu. He took his bachelor’s degree, B A, in 1942 from the Madras University with a triple second class (Chemistry Main (III Part) and took three master’s degrees, one in Tamil language and literature and the other in Philosophy from Madras University in 1950 and 1953 respectively with a second class I Rank and also a Master of Education from the Madras University on the subject ‘Thesis of Science curriculum’ with first class and first rank in 1946. He has to his credit, a certificate in French (1966), [Alliance Francaise, Madras], Language lab course (1967) [L.ADIF, Lyons], Diploma in German (1972) [First Class, Second Rank; Kerala University] and Diploma in Russian (1973) [First Class Second Rank; Kerala University].  He worked as a Demonstrator in Chemistry in the Intermediate Colleges for 3 years, as a School Teacher at high school level for 3 years and at a training school for 1 year. He also made his footprints in Training Colleges as Lecturer for 7 years, Professor for 5 years and in the University Dept. of Education as Reader for nearly 5 years, Professor for nearly 8 years.  Prof. Vedamani also worked as a Research Officer in the South Indian Teacher’s Union Council of Research for 3 years, as a Research Officer in the World Confederation of Organizations of Teaching Profession, Delhi for 1 year.  He was the Chief Technical Adviser (D1), UNESCO, National Teachers Institute, Nigeria for one year, Founding Director, Academic Staff College after Superannuation for 1 year and Director, Centre for Educational Research, Innovation, Development, Mirtraniketan for 4 years. He also held several non-formal positions as consultant, special lecturer and research guide.  He served as Dean, Centre for Technology for Development, Trivandum, (CETED).  He held several positions in the apex bodies relating to Teacher Education.  He was a Member, UGC Teacher Education Panel, for a period from 1973 to ‘76.

 It was the Department of education, the University of Kerala that provided the ideal setting for him to bloom as an educationist, researcher and teacher. The department was headed by Dr. N. P. Pillai and was, at that time, a beehive of activities. It had a research forum called Forum of Educational research and studies, Kerala (FERSK) and used to bring out a journal of its own. Dr. Manuel had as his colleagues, eminent academicians like Prof. Pushpita John, Dr. Mohan Mathew (who took the first Ph.D. in education from the University of Kerala) Dr. A. Sukumaran Nair (later Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University and then Vice-Chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam) and Dr. K. Sivadasan Pillai (a leading figure in non-formal education). Teaching, research and academic collaborations that took place during this period was crucial to the educationist in Dr. Manuel coming of age and he in turn had much to offer to his colleagues. His scholarship and variegated interests left a mark on the activities of the Department and his colleagues. 

As a teacher, he impressed the students through his deep scholarship, but he was not a good communicator. One reason for this was that he was always brimming with ideas from too many subjects and would jump from one point to another and sometimes even wander away from his original point to many other subjects. Students who had knowledge and interest in one or two related areas might not have had much interest in the examples he drew from totally different fields. He was prone to explain a concept in Chemistry or Mathematics using analogies drawn from Music or Linguistics. For students who did not like to wander away from the conventional boundaries of their chosen subject, this certainly might have been something of a dampener. They would very often get the feeling that his classroom presentations were disordered and not systematic! In reality, his lectures contained a wealth of ideas for anyone prepared to make the effort to listen. The analogies he drew from different subjects were particularly striking for those students with a wider perspective. To explain the octet rule in chemistry, Prof. Manuel always made use of the musical scale. He would explore poetic metre through the musical concept of Tala. He would frequently make use of the concept of etic and emic units in Linguistics to delineate concepts in Education or Sociology. He always threw in a good dose of humour, especially verbal humour drawn from a variety of languages. The high speed shuttling between different domains of knowledge and the sheer depth of the ideas that he attempted to convey had the effect of making his lectures veer away from neat, highly organized and pointed presentations that most students got used to in usual classrooms. His favourite subjects were philosophy and sociology of education, comparative education, science education and history of education. But, anyone who had the opportunity of knowing him even for a short time would have found out that he had a fine grasp of almost all areas of education and related disciplines. He had certain ‘models of education’ for which he used humourous names like EVP model (Enikkum Venam Paayasam) or Subrahmanya Model (Name drawn from the story of a quarrel between Ganapati and Subrahmanya). Beneath the humorous tags, the models enshrine deeply significant principles of education.

Though well versed in quantitative research methodologies, Prof. Manuel showed a preference for qualitative methods in the doctoral and post-graduate dissertations that he supervised. He was fascinated by the educational ideas and principles latent in our traditional culture. Pedagogy of Indian Music was another pet theme. Under his guidance, students like S. Venugopu and Vasantha Sreenivasan carried out significant studies in this area. The language of science in Malayalam is analyzed from the combined perspectives of Linguistics and Education in the study carried out by Dr. Radhamony, another Ph.D. student of Prof. Manuel.  He guided over 38 Ph.D. theses in the areas of Science education, environmental education, music education, language education, developmental education, education of the disadvantaged, philosophy, cultural history, cultural variations and educational adaptations–especially with the tribes and other ‘culturally different’ groups. In 1990, he master-minded and organized the workshop on Mapping of Educational Innovations from Below at CERID, Mitraniketan with financial support from NCERT.  He was also the member of many committees of NCERT, particularly those dealing with teacher education from about 1974-84 and was a member of the Governing Board of NCERT from 1982-85.  He was a Life Member of All India Association for Educational Research, Pondicherry Institute of Language and Culture: Dravidian Linguistics Association, “INDIS”, Trivandrum; and Madras Philharmonic Society. 

While participating as a resource person in scores of workshops organized by NCERT/SCERT, he attempted to make them democratic, interactive and relevant to the real issues on the ground wherever possible. In the early phase of Academic Staff College, working as Director and Resource Person, he tried out the intersection of modern developments in processing deep and abstract concepts in a form suitable to young minds. The thrust in this approach was to use pedagogy and other processing/communication disciplines in interaction with the content disciplines taught in colleges and schools-rather than presenting content and methodology as separate inputs, expecting them to get integrated by the trainee, somehow.

Prof. Manuel was popular in the University circles for some other reasons also. He was known as the ‘Professor who rides a bicycle’. From the time he joined the University, he commuted by a bicycle. He never owned a car. He never cared for power or position. While he was teaching in some schools on a voluntary basis, Prof. Manuel would spend lavishly to buy books, music instruments and sweets for poor students. Students have fond memories of this ‘strange man’ who came to teach them with sweets and gifts, and spoke in a mixed language of Tamil and Malayalam. (In spite of his phenomenal linguistic abilities, he could never come to grips with spoken Malayalam even after more than forty years of life in Thiruvananthapuram!)