State of education

May 22, 2015 02:59 am | Updated December 04, 2021 11:30 pm IST

Prof. Zoya Hasan’s article, (“ >No acche din for higher education ”, May 20), is a much-needed critique of the current education system in India. Though the Modi regime cannot be held fully responsible for the sorry state of the education sector, the past one year has seen the government under Ms. Smriti Irani’s HRD Ministry, contributing in its own way towards the mess. Experts and scholars like Dr. Amartya Sen and Dr. Kakodkar are being sidelined to make way for the BJP’s own “experts”. Also, the demand to rewrite history to suit the whims of right-wing elements is a tad dangerous.

K.B. Dessai,

Margao, Goa

A choice-based credit system has some merit over the present system of education in universities. By having a common entrance test and common syllabus, there can be uniform standards. For instance, a post graduate from a Central university will be better equipped than a graduate from a State university in terms of skill-sets and techniques. When transfers are implemented at least once in five years, professors who are well-paid would be able to concentrate on their quality of teaching and research rather than be involved in politics and diversionary activities, so much a part of university campuses now.

T. Prabhakara Reddy,

Secunderabad

While Prof. Hasan may be right in expressing her dismay over the inability of even a single Indian university to gain a global ranking she must not forget that this sorry state of affairs has not emerged suddenly. The coma-like condition of Indian universities is the result of decades of neglect of education sector by successive governments which have only fuelled this by starving them of funds and allowing the reckless expansion of private institutes. The net result of such a faulty policy is the shocking commercialisation of higher education in which the managements are allowed to run educational institutions in order to profiteer. Teachers are treated like bonded labour, students are mere consumers, and higher education is now a saleable commodity. In such an atmosphere, how can we expect quality universities?

Rameeza A. Rasheed,

Chennai

The efforts to revive the Central Universities Act 2009 will certainly invite frequent and punitive inter-university transfers and ruin the very fabric of uniqueness of our institutions of higher learning. Can one even think of such a faculty shift in Harvard, Yale or Princeton? In fact, State universities like the Punjab Technical University seem to have taken the lead in this. The need of the hour is to encourage and incentivise diversity if India wants to figure in the international research map.

Mohan Singh,

Amritsar

India lacks an integrated, coherent, national education policy encompassing primary to tertiary education, research and development and innovation especially as all these are inextricably linked. If the BJP-led government wants its ‘Skill India’, ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ plans to fructify, it must think of creating a skilled and well-educated labour force that is able to grasp the nuances of innovation and research. India has an invaluable asset of vibrant youth. All it needs now is effective and prudent resource mobilisation.

Rahul Singh,

Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh

Rote-learning, the absence of applied knowledge, a failure to revamp the curriculum, unqualified teachers, poor infrastructural facilities, a meagre allocation of funds for research programmes, next to nil recognition for teachers who produce credible results, a mushrooming growth of innumerable institutions, an absence of periodical checks on all institutions and a lack of interaction with leading and global academic universities are some of the age-old ills that have held back the growth of higher education in India.

E.S. Chandrasekaran,

Chennai

It is ironical that while a developed nation like Germany recently facilitated its well-off demography with free access to higher education, the poor and just above BPL class who constitute more than 50 per cent of our population continue to be excluded from mainstream quality education in India The more our policymakers deny the existence of this problem, the more problematic it will become to tackle the problems of dealing with an ill-equipped and unskilled workforce. The state should not only increase the budgetary allocation for education by at least two times from what it is now but should also establish a number of institutes of excellence such as the IITs in order to integrate India with the global knowledge economy of the future.

Meghana Patil,

Bengaluru

If not even a single Indian academic institution figures in the list of top 200 global universities then the fault lies with the educational policies and politics adopted so far. One cannot blame Prime Minister Narenda Modi for this. The fact is that we have got a Prime Minister and a government with a vision and definite policy after a long time. Therefore, allow them to implement their ideas. We will have ample time to discuss the pros and cons of their academic experiment, say after five or 10 years.

Wachaspati Pandey,

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

It is unfortunate that the writer seems to build a perception that all ills of the education system are due to the Modi government. It is true that Indian universities lag behind in global rankings, but who is responsible for this? If the new education policy appears to be “homogeneous” and “uniform” to some , it would be pertinent to ask what their so-called “plural”, “diverse” and “creative” approaches have done so far to raise the standards of our universities. The article appears to be the outcome of left-wing intellectuals angry with the so-called “right wing agenda” of the government. It also seems to be more out of a Leftist fear of losing ideological status quo in the universities and now manifesting itself as frustration and subsequent pontification.

Anoop Suri,

New Delhi

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.