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September 2011
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Doing good things for the love of itAt the annual national awards ceremony held on Independence Day, August 31, two members of The UWI family were presented with the Public Service Medal of Merit (Gold). Surujpal Teelucksingh, a Professor of Medicine, and Dr Noel Kalicharan, a Senior Lecturer in Computing and Information Technology were recognised for their contributions to medicine and education, respectively.In our February issue, we carried a profile of Prof Teelucksingh, who is also the Public Orator for the St. Augustine Campus, which can be read at http://sta.uwi.edu/uwitoday/archive/february_2011/article11.asp In this issue, we take a look at Dr Kalicharan’s role as an educator at The UWI. “If you do things because it is a good thing to do, it will come back to you,” says Dr Noel Kalicharan with karmic satisfaction. His office is piled with books and papers, some authored by him on programming, and the general ambience is that of an academic’s den.
He’s not cocooned by theories; he considers himself an innovative, practical man, empowered by academic training. “I’m practical,” he says. “Theory has value when you put it to practical use. I always like to do things that benefit others. Sometimes the research that is done is merely in pursuit of academic advancement. That’s why I’ve written books rather than papers,” he says with typical bluntness. Thirty-five years ago, he was the first person to be appointed as a full-time lecturer in computer science at UWI. It was 1976, computer science was a fledgling subject, and although mathematics remains his first love, he jumped into this newish field enthusiastically. He helped formulate the first version of the computer science degree which started formally in 1979 with an intake of 53 students, and remained involved in all revisions as well as the introduction of new programmes such as the BSc in Information Technology and the MSc in Computer Science. Practically everyone who has graduated in computer science from The UWI has passed Dr Kalicharan’s way. “My role an an educator is to produce learners. My goal is to empower others to learn how to learn. Part of that process is to emphasize principle rather than fact. It is far better to learn a principle from which many (perhaps, infinitely many) facts can be derived than to learn a few isolated facts. The world is constantly changing and only those who can adapt easily to change will survive.” “Having said that, it is becoming more and more difficult to teach principle. In my early years of teaching, it was very easy to teach principle, to produce thinkers. I remember one graduate going to an interview for a programming job. He was asked if he knew the programming language COBOL. He said no but he could learn it (on his own) if he was given two weeks. That’s because he learnt the principles of programming—the language was almost irrelevant. He was a learner.” “The modern graduate would simply say no. He would be happy to attend a workshop on COBOL where he might gain some superficial knowledge of the subject, but no deep understanding. That’s because hardly anyone learns principles any more. From primary school, the emphasis is on producing ‘regurgitators’. Such students have to learn everything from scratch. They cannot build on previous principles because they have not learnt any. It’s almost like learning the answer to every addition problem rather than learning how to perform addition.” With his strong views on the way people learn, Dr Kalicharan has willingly sat on several committees dealing with computer science education at the secondary and tertiary levels. Among these were the NIHERST Steering Committee, the National Training Board Advisory Committee and the Ministry of Education Advisory Committee in the 1980s. These committees formulated policy and laid the foundation for computer science education in the country outside of UWI. Dr Kalicharan has been heavily involved in the assessment of computer science/information technology at all levels. Apart from his role as examiner at UWI, he has been the moderator for computing courses examined by the National Examinations Council (1984-1993) and NIHERST (1989-1993). From 1992-2000, he served as the Chief Examiner in Information Technology for the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). In 1998, the Ministry of Education approached Dr Kalicharan to formulate a programme of training for high school teachers to enable them to teach CXC’s Information Technology. He has done this as well for Grenada.
In 1988, he was commissioned by Trinidad & Tobago Television to develop, produce and host a 26-programme series entitled Computers - Bit by Bit. In 1996, he was commissioned by the Guardian newspapers to write a 26-part series of articles on the Internet. In the 1990s, he developed a computer program to process the results of competitions run by the National Carnival Commission (Calypso Monarch, King and Queen of Carnival, etc.). Dr Kalicharan has won many major competitions with his work. Among these are the National Macintosh Open Competition sponsored by Apple Computer, the NIHERST Technology Innovators Competition, Prime Minister’s Awards For Invention and Innovation in 2000 and 2002 for the invention of games designed to teach thinking/numeracy skills and the Google Placement Challenge organised by BrightHub, open to entries from all over the world. In 1985, Dr Kalicharan published his first book, Computer Studies - Fundamentals Plus. This was also the first book on the subject by a Caribbean author. Since then, he has written 14 more books on computer science. His first major international successes were Introduction to Computer Studies and Computer Studies for GCSE, published by Cambridge University Press, 1988. They later published his widely-acclaimed success, C By Example. In 2010, NIHERST designated him a Trinidad & Tobago Icon in Computer Science. Part of his citation read: “A pioneer in computer science education in Trinidad & Tobago and the wider Caribbean, Noel Kalicharan’s contributions in diverse areas have had a lasting impact on the standard and quality of Information Technology locally, regionally and internationally.” For the little boy from rural Lengua, who had to spend three years in Standard Five because he was too young to do the 11-plus examination, who came from a place where even a trip to Princes Town was a big excursion; to become a computer science expert is a marvellous story of the wondrous things that come from a mind willing to learn. |
Dr Kalicharan has a somewhat public voice, if not face; he is a regular writer of letters to newspaper editors on diverse subjects, including cricket and, of course, education. He often pops up on internal university communication channels, sharing information, scolding colleagues, and offering suggestions to improve efficiency. It can range from eating habits to teaching methods, and the responses can be just as varied. One way or another, Dr Kalicharan provokes thought, and perhaps that is the educator in him. 
Since 1993, Dr Kalicharan has been almost solely responsible for Trinidad & Tobago’s participation at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). This is an annual computer programming competition for high school students. He runs the local leg of the competition (sets the problems and grades the responses), trains the top few students and acts as Delegation Leader to the IOI.