We need to free our universities from the stifling rules and quantitative targets which govern academic hiring and promotion.
India must rank among the world's oldest centres of ideas. Going by the texts and the inventions that have emerged from India, there must have been a time when it had an effective system of learning and instruction. However, somewhere along the way from a hoary past to a stagnant present, an institutional arrangement has emerged that is completely out of synch with the requirements of India's economy and the aspirations of its people. Perhaps the most significant shock that led to India's educational system veering off course was the introduction by the East India Company of the system of higher education in mid-nineteenth century. The significance of this is usually understood to be that the medium of instruction now became the English language. However, arguably, the medium of instruction per se mattered less than what came to be considered knowledge.
Concentrated in ports
The colonial initiative in the field of education led to a system of higher education concentrated in the ports, eluding the vast hinterland, and heavily skewed towards a European idea of the humanities, cutting away the graduates produced from their fellow natives. It cannot be asserted, however, that it was entirely worthless, at least not in the context of colonialism. The system did produce, in modest numbers, doctors, engineers and administrators. But, unsurprisingly, they largely went on to perpetuate colonial rule in India.
There were, of course, exceptions. Thus, there was C.V Raman who won the Nobel Prize working out of his lab in Kolkata. Then there were the scientists Bose and Saha, and in the arts Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, one of the first of the global academics from India who attained prominence as an interpreter of Indian texts to the West. But, by and large, what the university system produced was geared mainly to advancing the colonial project in India. It had little to offer on the specific problems of the country, was coy on the topic of democracy, and was wont to privilege English literature over others.
Political independence presented us with a unique opportunity to develop a higher education system devoted to creative thinking on India. But close to seven decades later, we have not made much of this opportunity, though the political class might claim that it has increased access.
Education, however, is also about the generation of ideas. In the world of ideas, political boundaries do not just count for nothing, but are mostly viewed with scorn. The adage “No man is a prophet in his own land” is not so much a lament for the prophetic academic as a message to the political establishment that they had better be hospitable to their thinkers. Long before the advent of the WTO, the world of ideas, as opposed to goods, was resolutely global. The one difference is that in the 21st century, information technology lays bare the cupboard, exposing those who only borrow ideas while celebrating those who produce them. We are by now left with the inescapable impression that in today's world, India is a mere consumer of ideas, generating much less in turn. From economics to political theory, not to mention the management mantrams, India's higher education archipelago is content to be at the receiving end. The unimaginative way in which higher education is structured is entirely responsible for this.
The central element in any system of institutionalised learning is the teacher, collectively referred to as the faculty. Following the substantial hike in salaries, as recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission, the universities have had to accept a set of rules governing all aspects of the functioning of their faculty. While the principle that earnings must be performance-linked is entirely correct, the question is whether the rules on recruitment and performance appraisal are designed to allow Indians to compete on the global marketplace for ideas, a forum not substantially different from the world of commerce where only the fittest survive.
Experience vs. excellence
The point about the current rules is that when it comes to performance appraisal, it quantifies activity without sufficient correction for quality. In a similarly misguided vein, recruitment rules are hooked on experience as opposed to proven excellence in research. While quantitative indicators have their place, their use must be confined to those areas where they have an applicability, such as lecture hours, and resolutely kept out of everything else, as they distort the picture. The claim that they provide a ‘transparent' index collapses when we recognise that even criteria stated upfront can be transparently poor when they are ill-suited to the task.
Quantitative output targets that ignore the quality of outcomes in the university can be disastrous for a society. Service rules in many Indian universities also restrict professional travel at a time when travelling to conduct and disseminate one's research has become the mark of the successful academic. It cannot have escaped anyone's attention that many overseas Indians are here almost as often as they are in the countries where they hold professorships. Why should India's academics be tied down by mindless rules, very likely devised by unaccountable bureaucrats who have no idea of how to create knowledge?
Quantitative targets, mindlessly implemented, are no answer to the very serious challenge the Indian university faces today, which is to compete in the global forum for ideas. The rules that govern them tie them down even before the race has started. An argument often made is that these rules are needed to discipline the vast army of college professors who have historically violated all norms even as they draw a salary. Absentee teachers, and underperforming ones, even when they do appear in the workplace, are a very real problem especially in the vast hinterland. There is also the problem of private college managements that have no interest in education except as a profit-making enterprise. While all of this needs seriously to be tackled, the field of education poses a very specific problem. Regulation — interpreted as tethering the faculty or evaluating them loosely — is surely less of an objective than the furtherance of education. We need to recognise that our objective is less to tie the lecturer down than to advance learning, which ultimately revolves around how much the young have learned. This requires something more than merely devising conduct rules for the faculty.
India needs to learn from the experience of the West, whose model currently towers over others in higher education globally. Certainly there are no nationwide rules in the United States, and far greater autonomy is given there to heads of institution when it comes to raising academic standards. In India, heads of institutions, especially in the university system, have become insignificant, in that they have no autonomy nor are they held responsible. Inevitably, the morass of rules and regulations precipitate self-selection: the brightest academics give a wide berth to administration as it is a professional deathtrap. Even as the rules for faculty appraisal quite shamefully privilege ‘foreign' journal publications over ‘Indian,' and ‘international' conferences over the merely desi, they remain entirely out of sync with the best global arrangements in higher education.
Killing creativity
Furthermore, among the recognised publications, there is no place for books, considered an important part of an academic's accomplishment globally, and the expected teaching load is outrageous. Summary quantitative indicators, adopted in the name of objectivity, kill creativity and encourage the mediocre. Actually, they are only the thin-edge of the wedge in the progression, and bode ominously for the future of India. Imagine an India without an Amartya Sen, a Romila Thapar or a ‘Venky' Ramakrishnan. The current system of governing the production of knowledge in our higher education system has come close to delivering precisely this outcome. It may be claimed that too few among India's academics have protested. But this is proof that the deathly arrangement devised to govern our institutions of higher learning has actually succeeded. The rules on recruitment and appraisal of faculty need to be publicly reviewed by an independent panel of citizens before it can do further harm.
(The author is on the faculty of Economics at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. The views expressed are personal.)
Comments:
Universities during the colonial era were mainly government sponsored. Even among the government universities, the private colleges produced better graduates than government colleges. The trouble for Indian education started right there. More government interference in government colleges produced poor quality graduates and academics. This disease of government interference spreads now into private colleges and universities reducing the quality of graduates in these educational institutions. In Europe and US the universities are independent from government interference in selection of students, academics and other staff; determination of their qualifications or salaries, conducting of examinations,
selection and salary determinatiions. The government rules, regulations and interference reduced the universities both public and private subject to political interference degenerating the education system with no room for quality, competence, merit and/or innovation.
Universities in India are the cradle for sycophancy, corruption and all
things evil. Academicians are becoming known for their intellectual
arrogance and as ego maniacs.
One cannot expect a country to progress with rudimentary ideas and
principles.We know education forms the roots of a country's progress
tree. The kind of lacklustre education system we have had since decades
we cannot expect to produce more C.V Raman's genre in our country . Its
high to break shackles of old worn out principles and allow our creative
mind to jump into the realms of brave innovations .
I have been a faculty in the US for the past 15 years and have seen the
decline in the quality of the students who come here for their M S and
Ph.D. While the capability of the students themselves has not deteriorated, they have not been trained properly. One reason may be the easy money to be made in the IT jobs in India. From my discussions with the students here, I feel that the faculty do not seem to be much interested in their students. I am surprised at this since I know a number of Professors at the IITs who are as good as some of the Professors in the olden days.
Could one reason for this be the high level of Government control (and
interference) on academic matters? I learn that the strength of each class in the IITs is about 60 and that they had to merge two class rooms into one in order to accommodate he increased strength. I also learn that the Faculty to student strength is now about one third of what it was about 10 years ago. If this is true, things are in a bad shape indeed.
What does the author have to say of the education in high schools in USA? Should we follow that system ? The colonial system of education replaced what we called the gurukul. Now gurukuls again were for Brahmins. Vocational training was passed from father to son. What should the new system be? I agree with the author that we have to free education from the clutches of babudom. If public money is involved some form of regulation and rules will remain. Education in ancient India was private funded. There were no kings or taxpayer money funded universities. How does India return to this utopia when the sheer size and scale of India today is mind boggling.
Prima facie ancient India had a private system of education. Again, if we have to indulge in mass production of students that are factory enabled then large funds are required - only the government has them. Thus, with public funding seemingly unavoidable, the best option is to have "education stamps"(like food stamps).Give a choice.
Nice opinion.in order to dig out many hidden talents from India we must do some correction as he prescribed..
A very interesting and informative article! Mr Balakrishnan makes the point that there is far greater autonomy to heads of institutions in the US when it comes to raising academic standards, while in India they have no autonomy. In my experience as an M.E. and then a Ph.D. student and now as an university academic in New Zealand, there is a lot of autonomy even for academics in setting course content and student evaluation. This exists even at the B.E. level but is markedly more in the masters and doctoral programmes.
Adding to what you said, we consider just the ability to read and write as to be a literate. So to get the numbers many acts are being passed without looking or considering the quality of education being imparted. We are training ourselves to be a slave of western services by doing tremendous hard work. Impetus to innovate and think freely is clearly missing in the system. Especially in states like Andhra Pradesh students of 10th, and Inter are just being treated as mere machines to muggify everything in the books and solve hundreds of problems quickly. Creative ability has to be fostered exactly in that age of 15 to 18 years. But due to 'corporate education' being encourage by govt itself, education industry has became an oligopoly business market.
As long as recruitment or selection of students happens through common entrances this scenario is bound to present and probably may take still dangerous forms.
indian education system is facing one the worst problem of destroying creativity and breeding losers. Sadly, they are the rulers of tomorrow.The education system is supposed to produce leaders for the development of the country, but what it is doing is creating workers(esp. IT workers). We argue whose culpable forever. But its time to make amends.
Being an integral component of this flawed education system,I fully endorse the author's ideas.Ever since a child is born,The parents try as much as possible to convert the predilection of children from their choice to their parent's choice.Finally when the child,now a student concurs with his parents' wishes ,he faces a myriad of students in the same race.As every child is not born with a spoon in his mouth,he is able to have the resources which he is capable of.Surely,I am talking about the schooling and the coaching part.Then he gets into a college depending upon his category and wealth.Now,if this is the situation,then how can the policy-makers even think of getting students with a quality education.The students always try to quantify his knowledge as this is the demand of the industry.No one even dares to add a tint of quality in that as this process will relegate him to an inferior position in comparison to others.So,finally a child commits himself to this cobweb of quantity.
The author has made a vital point here. For the very idea of progress lies on the morals of ethical education, which has been misrepresented in our current system of education. In US, the higher education is a collaborative partnership between the Industrialists and the institutions, where a solution to industry roadblocks is provided by a meticulous research (funded by industries) carried out by universities. This kind of a relationship is majorly absent in India. Such a system not only enhances research based academia but also stems a healthy and conducive channel between 2 pillars of any system (education and industry).
Sometimes i feel that increasing social networking must be a reason
affecting Indian education system.Like china who completely curtailed a
plethora of social networking sites, India should also initiate for such
a move.People are emphasizing on censoring contents of Facebook and
other social networking sites instead they should completely ban it.
Worthless to mention about the result of china's education system(stood
1st in the recently held global test for 15yr kids).
Being a product of the Indian education system and later a product of the western (German)research system in science , while I agree with a lot of issues raised by the author, I find the 'qualitative vs quantitative' issue selfcontradictory. While the author strongly suggests that '' India must learn from the west'' he derides the faculty appraisal system based on the preferential considerations for 'foreign' journal publication and international conference participation over the 'desi' ones. From my experience and knowledge it is much easier to publish in an indian journal as compared to an international peer-reviewed journal. This is because these journals have established themselves as a quality journal over a period of time and hence taking into consideration the publication in one of these journals as the 'proof of quality' does not seem to be a problem for me. At the same time it is easier to create a volume of research through publications in journals of low impact.
The article is simply brilliant depiction of the state of Indian
academics academics today, to say the least. I have been thinking about the very same issue; quality of research in economics. It is very sad that to know the fact that we, the young generation scholars, lack commitment and thrust for scholarship. The young minds who aspired to enter academics in 1950s, 60s and 70s had serious commitment. The idea of doing PhD then was completely different. To my understanding, they all were influenced and guided by the pursuit >scholarship and enthusiastic about generating new ideas. Today, academics is a different ball game, where people enter purely for personnel gains and rewards. It stood be understood that academics is not about making money by doing some projects. I feel we have special role in the society. Our job is to understand, address and reflect upon the contemporary economic issues so as to enable current theoretical and understanding of the issues, probably suggest new
ideas. As you have rightly pointed out, the norms laid down by the UGC for improvement of the existing system helps not achieving better quality but creates a new environment for mediocre society. It is high time to realise the serious consequences it would have on the forthcoming generation.
One more issue that frustrates me the most is the selection of research issues by the students across different universities. In the recent past, students are obsessed with application of sophisticated tools developed by economists in the West without even understanding the relevance of it. Our research should not be merely guided by the application of tools. While tools are important in the empirical investigation, they should not dominate the focus of the issue that one is trying to address. This practice is further aggravated with the origin of some journals who publish works with application of advanced tools, no matter whether they are at all required or follows analytical rigor. It is no exaggeration to say that third world research mistook the idea of empirical research. It is simply not the application of advanced statistical tools to the Indian data sets. I think selection of research issues should be guided either with the discontentment with the economic discourse or with the persisting economic problems we encounter everyday in life. Unless, we realise our state of knowledge in the world of scholarship soon, we may permanently settle down in the low level academic trap. At this juncture I quote what Ha Joon Chang wrote in his recent book, 23 things that they don't tell you about capitalism about economic research as “95 per cent of Economics is common sense made complicated, and even for the remaining 5 per cent, the essential reasoning; if not all the technical details, can be explained in plain simple terms.”
The information being provided is completely inevitable. India needs
an immediate reform in the education sector whether it is the higher
or the secondary. Where is that quality we used to see right from the
ages of chanakya to aryabhatta to various scientists of 19th century?
Today's education has become dull and irksome.We don't get to see the
innovation,the spark and the flow of knowledge. Hundreds of thousands
of engineers, doctors and other professionals pass every year; their
thinking being confined towards getting a good job, a good pay in any
of the MNCs, Or get a masters and let the brain go in the drain.Who
wil generate ideas if all start thinking like this? It's just a pay
and get thing now. A complete reform can only be achieved when
people,faculty and government change their mentality, when they start
thinking that education is not just about being a cakewalk and earning
your bread, its about creating knowledge in every individual for the
sustainable growth of society.
Solution to the many ills in the education institutions can be addressed if learning
Sanskrit can be made mandatory with a strong emphasis on sports education. This
will help India to break out of neo colonialism, socialism, communalism. I hope that this is achieved as any more delay will be dangerous to our democracy/society/country.
A very interesting article! I have been trying to drive this idea to my professors ten years ago. The outcome was, I nearly lost a year and more over, I was an outcaste. Thank you so much for this article, I really hope a few people would change this mass educational system.
Prof. Balakrishnan succeeded in highlighting issue but could not provided any viable solutions. Arguments mostly derived from Russell's "on education". The emphasis of evaluating the research and teaching based on both quantitative and qualitative aspects is an ideal solution. Quantitative assessment is possible due to it's visible nature but how to measure quality and who will measure the quality.In the process of measuring the quality, we may land up with biased problem. Again, on private institutions, it can not be generalized that private institutions are only profit making machines.In India many top institutions are started and running or funded by the private players.TIFR, TISS, IISc, BITS-Pilani, VIT and top ranked schools are the evidences. To put it in economic terms, the presence of private players will increase the competition and will result in higher quality. lastly, The Vice-chancellor's may not have complete autonomy over the but definitely does not lack powers.
The writer comes up with a "good" and "patriotic" thesis. Alas, it is backed up by bad evidence. There is nothing shameful if publishing in international journals receiving higher accolades than publishing in Indian journals. This is simply an honest acknowledgement of the low quality of many Indian journals today. Rather than being "shameful", this is one of a few examples of academic probity in the Indian system. Finally, to cite Romilla Thapar as an example of academic erudition simply boggles the mind. With little original work, she represents a "colonial" mindset that went about distorting and misconstruing history, for political purposes.
Gone are those days when the 'MASTER' of the village was given the greatest respect.Today this instituionalization of the education system has created a situation where the society takes teaching as a profession of inefficient people.Who to blame...society or the system!
Some inconsistency here.
Creativity is higher in mother tongue, but author has accepted it as a 'not so serious ' or a
problem 'too difficult to solve'. But this is the key, that higher education is actually trapped in
English medium. Medium of Presentation itself requires so much of heavy lifting that
creativity suffers.
The best way to rejuvenate the system with innovation and creativity is to free it from the stifling controls of the Government. The government should set broad objectives and targets, and let individual universities and school systems to figure out how they will achieve them.
The "Golden Triangle" should be introduced. Education Institution-Industry-Lab. When this is followed, Education system in India can shine well. Now a days those who don't get job in the core fields do their M.E. & join as lecturers. How can you expect quality teaching if the person is unable to perform some task in the industry. The criteria of selecting a professor should not be just stop with a doctorate degree but with industrial experience too must be added to the criteria. Similarly, selecting a lecturer too.
I had been involved in medical education - as an undergraduate student in India, as a graduate student in India and the US, and as an educator in the US. Too much emphasis on the free exchange of ideas. Drug companies,and medical equipment manufacturers sponsor researches with the demands that the researchers maintain secrecy. I wonder if any one can rid the investigators on government grants of secretiveness from jealousy. Do conferences really encourage new idea?
I wish that Professor Balakrishnan had emphasized on the following needs:
(1)Good libraries that have (a)silent and comfortable spaces, (b) which can remain open at evenings, weekends, and holidays, (b)inexpensive photocopying facilities, and (c) strict restriction against diversion of books and journals to "departmental libraries". (2) Teachers are to have roomy and private offices. (3) They must not leave the college campus and/or the hospital before 5 PM and they should be always ready to receive the students.
i respect you for the detailed analysis you did over our education
system. but don't you think it's time we moved over and did some
research on how to solve the problem rather than crying over spilt
milk. when every newspaper is flooded with editorials of indian
education system being obsolete and what not, yet neither of us
thinking on how to solve it. no offence sir, but don't you think its
time we moved on to get some ways where in we could correct the
things.. THE HINDU please, it's a request from a sincere reader please
please, we need solutions.. an article from Arul Archana earlier this
week too talked on the same thing. please enlighten us with some
solutions, you people have done it most of the time, and you still
can..
Nice thoughts. First reservations must be removed. They have converted diversity of India into divisions. These institutional divisions have now after 2 decades become "Mental divisions" . It has shown in the quality of "Lecturers" and the subsequent brain drain. I left India as i did not want my childern to be discriminated against on the basis of Caste , or anything else. The truth is, and its a bitter one, India has fallen decades behind China even in Science and "Ideas". It has fallen into the backwash of this Century - medical research, Arts( what with MF Hussain being banned.... ) , Sports , you name it. Forget the West , India is on the ranks of Sub Saharan Countries.... Because of Political Mafia which has never been fought by the Intelligence agencies. India is good for being a marketplace. Not an originator of ideas. Its content to rely on exceptions alone >eg: Sachin Tendulkar. What about Ajinkya Rahane? ( meritocracy?? )
The problem of faculty is missing a very serious point here which concerns hinterland only. These faculty are actually the people who check papers too. No student of higer studies is allowed to be imaginative when he's constantly under the fear of losing so called 'first division'. I am electronic engineer working with HCL Infosystems these days and I somehow managed to keep my Div-I. The questions are set, answers are set. Worse still, there are books set from which answers should be because they're widespread in the Univ and most faculty checkers used that only--it doesn't matter here whether your answer is worth a read or what! The nail in the coffin: the generation is more concerned about a job to put out their shingle, rather than excellence and questions--they try to run as far away as possible from everything which would puzzle their understandings! Dismal... I, on my part, always make notes I write available for free download for my juniors in college, least I can do.
Mr. Balakrishnan does make some very good points. Quantified performance metrics does serve as bad incentives when idea generation is the area of focus. It might lead to activities which steer students away from quality, examples being memorization. However, I think the education system established after independence was done with the focus of creating experts who could do very specialized skills and we were successful at that. But times have changed and hence, the requirements as well. It is true that we have not been successful in adapting ourself to the change. The question which bothers me, however, is though we know that the system is faulty, we are still playing blame games among ourselves, instead of initiating the change. We, and by that I mean the citizens, want the government to change the education system for us, instead of taking responsibility for it.
Bottom up approaches are more stable and successful than top down approaches, thus, creating more stable structures.
A well thought-out and meaningful essay. Policy makers need to realize that resources are not the issue; it's the mindset that needs to change. I specifically liked this section: "Quantitative targets, mindlessly implemented, are no answer to the very serious challenge the Indian university faces today, which is to compete in the global forum for ideas. The rules that govern them tie them down even before the race has started. "
It is excellent to read Prof Balakrishnan's article who is endowed with commanding
English but only depicts half the real story exists in India. Our first education minister formed the UGC and IIT who is none other than Moulana Azad who was our best friend to our great country which does not want to split into pieces. At that time itself, he said UGC has to over see the recruitment and maintenance of "quality faculties" all over the country especially in Ph D "making" efforts. Unless "real qualified", academically and research trained and dedicated teachers are recruited from elementary school to colleges, genuine, creative thoughts can never be seeded in young minds. Ph.D guides in state universities are so pathetic that some times their own students are against them or the "work" is not qualified. You will never see real progress as long as we feel bogus proud to recruit so called "professors" based upon "castes" rather than genuine academic qualifications/trainings abroad.
I quite agree with the author. In my college, Engineering is all about attending classes -without questioning what we are being taught- and mugging up and vomiting in exams. And if you ask any doubts, the teacher blames you for reading 'substandard books'. Moreover, if you write in your own words, never expect to top the exams- as you are expected to write answers from 'good books' (just a foreign author signifies that the book is good). A recent incident happened with me. I got a zero in an answer as I wrote: 'The circuit becomes complex' rather than writing: 'Hardware complexity increases'. Yeah, we make projects, but what is the use? We copy the circuits from Internet, because we are not confident enough to make a circuit of our own. When I tried to make a Solar Hybrid Car, and asked for help and funding, I was told: 'Tum nahi kar paoge!!!'. May be I could not, but what is wrong in trying? My sessional marks went down after that incident. Nothing can be expected from such a system.
The author has raised some valid and interesting questions about Indian education system. Indian education system is a much better form of what we inherited from Britishers, it would be unfair to say that it has deteriorated over time after independence or we have kept it as it is, there are a number of modifications and hence improvements which are be clearly seen. It has gone too far in creating knowledge workers though which needs to be checked and for that a systemic change in the perspective of government and the masses is required. The very fact that we have a large middle class validates the reality that we see less researches and less concern towards building such environment, the attitude must change. However we should not try to belittle the achievements of current system how so ever mediocre they may be in comparison to the rest of the world.
Nice thoughts . BUT one has to remember that FREEDOM is NOT FREE and break-through's occurs due to efforts of individuals. I feel NO Faculty or any academic has been barred from thinking & working.NO one can take away one's thinking process.There is ENOUGH space ,in this era of innumerable journals,media etc to exhibit one's strength. What we are LACKING is perseverance and will to face odds.
UGC has raised the salaries of Faculties[NOT of Academics!] with some guide line to monitor each faculty's work. Many funding agencies are DOLLING OUT grants via Minor,Major projects. WHY not use this great opportunity.Perhaps what is REQUIRED is Change of Mind set. For example Let Each Faculty contribute SINGLE authored work. Let students publish their work with the GUIDE only be acknowledges in the paper! for guiding is PART of Faculty's normal work for which salary is paid! Inculcate an outlook of "THINK DIFFERENTLY & ACT COHERENTLY " in solving Research Problems & let others also GROW!
Completely endoarsing the Author's concern of lack of ideas & knowledge creation(even our own country specific, forget about ideas benefiting other countries & societies) in the current education system in the country.There is clear lack of zeal & passion for creating something original & innovative which would fulfill the needs of the people.Govt. is not offering anything positive & substantial either.Thers is clear lack of cooperation & coordination between Govt. & industry stelwarts. Public Instition's faculty beleive in the sustainability of their own jobs as further as possible. They dont even give freedom to their own pupils to innovate from their own. They want their owm unproductive & derivative ideas to be at the top as far as research in their labs are concerned.They major focus remains the paper publication only in major conferences( that is also derived one.
I did a masters overseas and it is unfortunate that i felt that i learnt
more about free thinking and creativity in my 2 years abroad than i did
in my entire 14 years of education in Delhi , India. I couldn't agree
more with this article.
Excellent piece. The entire system of education in India, from school to university, seems to be geared towards an overwhelming assimilation of data, and the understanding of next to nothing. Most of the young people I work with a content to simply "be". They appear to have no interest and commitment to explore, to learn, to understand. This is a bad reflection on the system that educated them. Perhaps it is a symptom of the survival instinct, the emphasis being on learning the bear minimum to gain decent employment in a country where the sheer volume of people creates a state of perennial competition. I am an advocate of reservation but I can see how that could frustrate bright minds who are unable to gain seats because they aren't from backward communities. Ultimately, the pursuit of 'gyan' is a luxury of sorts unlikely to attract those who need to support themselves or their families. We're going to have to be patient for the delivery of universal economic justice.
Teach them basics values, no point in giving them academic content and
campus placements alone. Focus on teaching how to create and follow
ValueS = Value + Some more basics(diff parameters).
This values derived prosperity saves them a long way in their lives
and contributes towards good growth. If the success is defined as
achieving goal alone, which can be reached by taking the path of sin
using negative perfection and unfortunately which is the case
today.Reservations/Discrimination benefits based on caste gender
religion, Corruption, Fake resume lives,fake reimbursements,win with
sin, theory of power modulus all of these incorrect basic beliefs and
lost morals contribute more towards false. Now a days, students have
started thinking that the ultimate objective is to make money and the
path hardly matters. This monetary run alone cannot survive on itself
for long. The insight and the understanding of life=only monetary run
is quite incorrect and leading us far away from basic values.
considering the magnitude of the challenges faced in bringing upto speed a nation made of largely unschooled population that we inherited in 1947, we have done ok, i think. we have had social responsibility angle, which no other country has faced. Today, it is not uncommon, to see first time graduates, from families who ancestrally had no recourse to education. can we still comfortably say, that each community in india can boast a graduate? a doctor? should these too be considered measures of success? or failure? How much of education is needed for a MNC job? only in india i think, we have 4 years trained engineers, for software developers. in the west, a simple 2 year college, or high school be deemed sufficient. and then companies like infosys or wipro, who mould these to suit their needs. why not take these right from high school?
Just ask a cobbler whose child graduated into a doctor. to him the education system just works fine. let us start bottoms up, and do a better job.
We aimed at preparing a large workforce of engineers after independence who can learn quickly from the developed world.Now we have enough.The need of the hour is to produce thinkers who can generate new ideas and not just reproduce the already existing ones.Currently we are a herd of sheep guided by the developed countries.We need to veer off the track we have been on for so many years.India is at a stage now where we need to discover a route under the footsteps of a large workforce,the fertile lands,the river basins.What I mean to say is we need to concentrate on our own strengths rather than only trying keep pace with the superpowers.It is quite evident that in that way we are never going to get ahead of them.
My views are in parallel with this publication.In the context of this
passage I would take the instance of IITs and IIMs, which, considering
the vast intellect base of India,are more or less trying to sustain
their reputation by working on the lines of western institutions,without
in my knowledge, providing any significant contribution since their
origin. Henceforth creating more deficiency than surplus of knowledge.
starting this year MIT (yes Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is offering courses for free. yes free, through its online education arm MITx. these are free for anyone in any part of the world. so we in india, too, have an opportunity, thanks to technology again, to leapfrog a system, which may not satisfy the requirments of a growing population. MITx, for a fee, will also give you credentials.
so if the focus, is on gaining knowledge, then thanks to the internet, any one in india, or sub saharan africa, can avail him/herself of the best education offered to teach calculus or physics, the usual bugbears of any teacher or student. the indian model of gurukulam, replaced by western medieval concept of classrooms, is now about to face the challenges of a new digital revolution - top notch access of education to who wants them and for free. ofcourse, brick and mortar bound educators, are going to cry 'fowl', for no one likes the prospect of losing their jobs & influences :)
In the West there are plenty of incentives provided for early career scientists such as early career awards and travel opportunities. The phrase "investing in youth" is taken seriously. Whereas, I attended a conference (in US) where the delegates from India were only gray-haired "experienced" scientists who were merely keen on taking pictures and presenting memento to one another. The article raises some legitimate issues. But it also reads contradictory in places. E.g., "In the world of ideas, political boundaries do not just count for nothing" vs. "the rules for faculty appraisal quite shamefully privilege ‘foreign' journal publications over ‘Indian,' and ‘international' conferences over the merely desi". Sounds jingoistic and showcases denial mindset. I think it is high time we acknowledge the need for the Indian community to earn becoming part of the "international" community. The "us and them" mentality is counterproductive.
It will need extremely bold initiatives and persistent efforts to revamp the higher educational system as envisaged in this opinion.
very true, education system needs to be get modified as soon as
possible for the better future of our country... States like in
central India education system continuously deteriorating as
innumerable colleges are opening providing third class education
without any practical knowledge technical-medical to management .
Dear All, It is nice to know the general views of people in this
forum. Most of them hate the current system. What will happen if we
shut down the current system? What will happen if we introduce the
American system in India? I got all my 3 degrees BE, ME and PhD from
India. I feel I generated more original ideas from India than my
competitors in UK or US. I travel around the world and I feel my ideas
are far superior than most of the faculty/academics across the globe.
It all boils down to the individual. I did meet all the Indian rules +
I went the extra mile to perform better than the guys at MIT. If every
Indian could do this then we will see people look towards us the
Indians. Indian system is good enough and combined with the
individual's perseverance we will be on top of the world!!!
India and it's critics . Everyday i come across some new critic and
some more "this is wrong" . We all know what the problem is. It's
not worth putting it in a 'High frequency English language", it does
not subdue the problem. Now, it time we give solutions. So here I
start ...
1. What do we need now "Free Thinking India" or an "Educated India"
?
- Illiteracy is still high , so Educated India. Free Thinking will
follow. it's like if i don't know what is I,L,G,H,T are, then i wont
know LIGHT .So step 1 "Educated India'
2. How to achieve it ?
- Provide "Free Education" to all children till class 10. But "It's
is already there " : If so, then we need to improve it .
3. Who is going to improve it then ?
- Government ,No we can do it. Every year thousand of iitian's ,
nittian's , iims.. graduate..why cant they do an inter ship in
teaching ..is there any harm in it .
All i am trying to say is ,Collectively we can achieve it!
The education system in India is getting worse each passing day with
degeneration increasing at the very basic level - toddlers. 2 yr olds
now have to go to pre-school in order to prepare for LKG, as there
are interviews and what not! Certain schools even base their decision
on the possession or affordability of car by the parents. The
creativity of a human being is actively being suppressed let alone
being moulded. Even though I am a relatively young person impacted by
this government's education, I had better days at school rather than
the kids of these days.
Nice piece of work, enjoyed reading it!! Most corporates preach the idea of innovation these days. But most of such entities seldom realize that young professionals are often crippled by the system of education that they had been following to think differently.If the business fraternity understands that innovation is key to their survival & well being, I suppose the education system must also act as a catalyst in some way. It is essential for India & its growth to update the education system as it should be based on much more that mere numbers. The value system must be conceptualized in such a way that people dont just pursue grades but also knowledge & awareness in its true essence. For them to do the same, system of appraisals, evaluation & recruitment needs to be reengineered. May be the elite institutions and corporates could show the path to their peers as they have both the capability and means to do such a thing. Most likely others may follow or atleast try to update the system.
Education is a hard topic in any part of the world. At the same time, it is also the most important aspect of improving and enriching the quality of life for any society. Let's examine a few, to help design a better system. (a) S Korea has a very high percentage of population going for college studies and without a PhD degree it is relatively hard to find a decent job. (b) Quality of research in the western world is part of the culture right from the start (Kindergarten). Completely or "very" largely missing from even top Indian institutions. Research doesn't just cost money, it costs time and requires sincere intentions from those responsible for implementing it. (c) School education creates a foundation but even in USA the school system is not considered very good when you compare with some of the Scandinavian countries. (d) A program called KIP (Knowledge Is Power) ...(I am out of words per this site's policy)..Overall a good discussion thread.
We have a system which just looks at the external markers to assess quality...we are really good in making "computers" which is actually what the industry wants...but we never teach our students how to ask questions and how to understand things by themselves ..I can give you an Eg: I came to know about an incident where one of my closest friend visited his old school and asked the +2 students whether they understood calculus..for eg either integration or differentiation( which i couldnt understand completely so far and not even now ..:))..almost everyone in the class knew what the eqautions are and how to solve problems using the formulae..but they didnt understood what basically was integration or differentiation..the basic idea that why we integrate or differentiate something was not properly understood by 90% of the students...And this is a very good examle for the failure of our system...
one another issue is the flexibility..I did my masters in a university abroad and i was doing my botechnology there where we could mix and match the courses i wanted to do, but the most important thing that changed my life and career was that i was allowed to pursue what i exactly was interested in doing .. as a part of my masters I just did theoretical courses for one semester and then for 1.5 years i made a choice of working in a research lab of my interest with out taking any further courses..but this experience was enough to be considered for my graduation..This experience changed my view point about science and research with out which i could have forever got locked in a class rooom where i only learn what other spoon feed in to my head..and in India majority of Indian universities just teach you the same text book ...and students are just taught to learn in these enviornments and never to ask questions...
The utmost educational reform that we need is to make whole educational system an independent one. What is utmost is to care for those more than 40% of the youth and children who don't get education or rendered illiterate just because of their poverty or other social-economic restrictions. We all know, filthy politics in India would never let it grow qualitatively. We need a more robust and fully Independent body for taking care of our educational system's growth.Intellectual here are mostly lured by the heavily cash loaded jobs, they never ever think about going to research or >other creative works. And why shouldn't they get fascinated??? After all they are human! So what our country needs: 1) An Independent educational system with budget allocated for that body, officials selected should be those who are renowned researcher and knowledge pundits. 2) Recruitment and appraisal of faculty should be on the basis of academic excellence, quality research blended with experience.
Research need real talent. A talented student will get admission in IIT and just being a graduate will hopefully earn more than most of the professors. So top student will not opt for higher education and research will be crouded by comperatively second grade students, outcome of which is obvious.So first planing supported by adequate budgeting has to be put in place for which political will is the primary requirement. With present budgetory support things are not going to change, as the inconsiderable percentage shows what priority goverment pays for education as a whole leave alone the higher education and quality of it.
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