Our tertiary education system does not serve the masses
I was at Jawaharlal Nehru University recently with some of the top senior academicians in Delhi, before dinner.
I was told that the budget of the University Grants Commission was Rs.41,000 crore in the Five Year plan and the annual budget of JNU was about Rs.150 crore.
In my usual blunt way I said, “How has this benefited the Indian masses? It seems that the huge funds being ploughed into higher education in India are for the benefit of foreign countries and to give you professors huge salaries and fine houses to live in rather than to benefit the Indian people.”
This sparked off a lively debate. Some of the professors tried to refute my statement, but I stuck to my guns.
I said that most of the money spent on education in India went to the institutes of higher education like the IITs and universities, and very little money was spent on primary and middle schools, particularly in rural areas, where the foundation of education was laid. There are very few facilities such as proper seats, electricity, books, classrooms, etc in these primary or middle schools, whereas the institutes of higher education are given huge funds and have very good facilities, state-of-the-art campuses, air-conditioning, etc. I then gave a few examples to prove what I said:
1. I once went to a village about 40 km from Allahabad (my native city) to meet a farmer friend of mine, with whom I had studied at Allahabad University.
At his home I met one of his sons who had passed class seven and promoted to class eight in his high school in the village. I asked him to bring his class 7 mathematics book and solve a few simple problems. He could not do so. I wondered how he had been promoted when he could not solve simple class 7 problems. I then solved those simple problems, and asked him to attempt the other problems in the lesson. He was obviously an intelligent boy, because having learnt how to solve the simple problems, he proceeded to solve the rest.
At this I asked him, “Did your teacher not teach you all this?” He replied, “Master Sahib thekedari karne lage hain, aur doosre master sahib class lene aate naheen hai” (the teacher has become a contractor, and the next teacher does not come to take classes”).
2. I went to a reputed intermediate college in Allahabad and was told that in a section in Class 11 there are 250 students. I was shocked. Under the rules there should not be more than 40 students in a class. What teaching can possibly be done in a class of 250 students? I also learnt that in some of the sections at Allahabad University there are over 300 students, and there is not even place for a student to sit.
In view of this, much of the real education takes place in private coaching institutes, or at the residence of teachers who make much more money there than in their institutions. As a result, these teachers evince little interest in teaching in their institutions, and a student who does not join the coaching (paying high fees) finds it difficult to pass.
3. In many of the staffrooms of our educational institutions, teachers, instead of discussing academic matters, often discuss petty politics, often of a casteist nature or matters pertaining to their service conditions. Senior professors often try to promote lecturers of their own caste, whether they have merit or not.
4. Teachers are often appointed not on merit but on extraneous considerations, like political connection, caste, etc. They are appointed on contract basis. In some States, “shikshamitra” who have been appointed on a salary of Rs.1,500 a month have no degree or teachers’ training qualification.
5. The level of intellect of many teachers is low, because many of them have not been appointed on merit but on extraneous considerations. To give an example, when I was a judge of Allahabad High Court I had a case relating to a service matter of a mathematics lecturer in a university in Uttar Pradesh. Since the teacher was present in court I asked him how much one divided by zero is equal to. He replied, “Infinity.” I told him that his answer was incorrect, and it was evident that he was not even fit to be a teacher in an intermediate college. I wondered how had he become a university lecturer (In mathematics it is impermissible to divide by zero. Hence anything divided by zero is known as an indeterminate number, not infinity).
Brain drain
I gave them many more such examples, and told the senior academicians at JNU that huge amounts of money of the Indian taxpayer is spent on the IITs and other institutes of higher education, but the graduates of these institutes usually take up jobs in foreign countries. This results in brain drain. Thus, while Indians pay taxes which go towards educating our bright students, the benefit of their education goes to foreign countries and not to the Indian people. These foreign countries benefit because higher education in their own countries is very expensive, so they have to pay only a fraction of that amount to get our bright young students.
I posed them another question: the test of every system is one simple question. Does it raise the standard of living of the masses or not? I said that the huge amount of money being spent on higher education in India is not raising the standard of living of the Indian masses because over 75 per cent of Indians live in dire poverty. There is massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices, huge problems of health care, housing, etc.
Apart from that, I asked them how many Nobel laureates have our universities and other institutes of higher education produced. Hardly any.
In many American universities one will find half a dozen Nobel laureates. Australia, which has a population of about 25 million, has 180 academicians who have an F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society), while India, with a population of 1,200 million, has only about 20. So what are the achievements of our scientists and other intellectuals? It is only when they go to the United States or Canada or Europe that they achieve anything.
What is the quality of research work done by our academicians in institutes of higher learning? Unfortunately it is abysmally low and does not benefit the Indian people. Their publications are mostly poor, and done only to improve their CVs in order to get jobs.
The purpose of education is to help raise the standard of living of the masses. But in India it seems that its purpose is to raise the standard of living of a handful of people who get jobs as teachers, particularly in institutions of higher education.
I must say to the credit of the professors assembled there that they did not take any of my remarks personally. I told them that I had no intention to insult them but was only voicing my genuine grievance about the educational system in India, and the need to make it more beneficial to the masses.
At the end it was agreed that my views required serious debate which hopefully shall be held at JNU or elsewhere soon.
(Justice Markandey Katju is chairman of the Press Council of India.)
Keywords: Education funding, University Grants Commission, brain drain
Professor is Indeed right in saying 1/0 in INDETERMINATE.
This is not at all equivalent to saying Infinity. For a primary school kid or teacher it could be justified but not at all for an Intermediate or University teacher.
This Concept is well illustrated in Chapter 'Functions and Limits' which is often first chapter in 12th and Engineering Mathematics as well which i studied several years ago.
Illustration in simple words for 1/x
Lets suppose x is very very close to zero. (we call this tending to zero)
There can be 2 cases, when it is very very close,
a)it could be just less than zero ( i.e. 0- )
ii) or it could be just more than zero ( i.e. 0+ )
If its 0+ (positive) , answer for 1/x is Positive infinite.
If its 0- (negative) , answer for 1/x is Negative infinite.
Since we don't know about zero , whether it is positive or negative, we cant evaluate the answer to Positive Infinite or Negative Infinite.
Thus its called INDETERMINATE (something which cannot be Determined).
Just as we have to pay Taxes to our Govt. for our protection , Govt. of India has to
pay 'Taxes' to the International Dadas like USA and USSR. USA wanted the best of
Indian brains as 'Dadabati'(price to be paid for protection0 , where as USSR
wanted the Indian Arms market . India had to satisfy both. Now that USSR is
replaced by RUSSIAN Federation ,the requirement of new Russian Govt. is that
India should be a member of BRICS group.Other conditions will follow.
Sir, your question to maths teacher needed more context. In terms of field algebra of real numbers, division is "undefined" operation, so your answer is correct in that context. But in complex analysis as in Riemann Sphere, division by zero is indeed a legal operation yielding infinity, so the lecturer wasn't incorrect either.
I would like to point out that in common terms for a 10th grader, we use
1/0 = infinity.It is just a term.So that was a little harsh
comment/observation by the judge.Concept of indeterminate number is
foreign for a kid.
I think the answer given by mathematics teacher was correct....
The concern well raised. I too subscribe to the same view. We need to really think about it and prioritise primary and secondary education over higher education....
Great Article. Just one question regarding brain drain...
Okay, so you spend billions out of taxpayers' money, select the most
brilliant of minds, provide them the best of resources and equip them
with the most exotic knowledge. Great.
But what next?
What would a person with a specialization in nanotech/advanced
electronics/fuel cells/advanced medicine do in a country that has
virtually no corporate/commercial research facilities? how do you
expect them to find a job in India?
As for entrepreneurism, the conditions in India are far from being
excellent. So the students are not really left with a lot of choice
here...
An article bemoaning the present system of education ,ofcourse ,a cry
in the wilderness.When the governments, both at the centre and states
are eager to serve their foreign and Indian corporate giants, by
supplying cheap intellectual labourer,meek,dumb ,docile and
servile,how can U expect the govts to give Quality schhool education
to all.For the rich and powerful you have Doon schools ,Kendria
Vidyalayas,Residential, schools which are given exemptions from
25%quota from hitherto neglected sections of the society,At the same
time Mr.Katju is under illusion that all Universities enjoy the same
benevolence as JNU.Many rural Universities ,including Osmania
University ,Hyderabad suffer from lack of funds and sufficient number
of teachin staff.Blesser are the chosen like JNU.
Really unfortunate to see that Mr. Katju thinks that Rs. 150 crore ($30 million) is a
lot of money for a University to rise to universal standards. Till just a few years ago
India's R&D budget was 700 million dollars for the whole nation. He probably
missed the information that Sony spends more than that on R&D. India's spending
has improved but is still miserly. Especially when his Govt. has failed to stop Rupee
from depreciating. Plus why blame the academics. I personally know people who
applied for Indian universities with exceptional Ideas and caliber but were rejected
because they did not have political connections. Lets face it, money is not the only
reason for Brian drain. Most academics of caliber are people of integrity and they
don't want to work in the highly politicized Indian universities.
I joined a central institute as these institutes carry around an
aura among themselves in every field. I had a dream of contributing
something to our society and country by doing meaningful research.
But i was frustrated to find that the kind of research that was
being done neither had meaning nor any usefulness to our society.
But my professor had no problem in getting the funds as it was a
central institute. All that mattered was the individual
publications, career growth, international conferences in the name
on developing country etc.. Now i am leaving the institute to pursue
something meaningful in my small town...
Only an exalted judge who enjoyed absolute powers in his courtroom, and who
could order anybody into jail for contempt of court if they so much as breathed
dissent, can exude Mr. Katju's confidence in his own omniscience. He talks
mathematical nonsense, while ridiculing a poor teacher for giving essentially the
right answer, as anybody with a post-10th-standard knowledge of mathematics
knows. He doesn't know the difference between an indeterminate quantity (which
can have quite a determinate limit when properly analysed), and an infinite or
unbounded quantity. One does not expect him to, as a judge. But he needn't flaunt
his ignorance as knowledge! It is pathetic-except for the frightening thought
that this might well be precisely the sort of presumed omniscience that marks the
make-or-break decisions taken in our courts. Before turning to education, he
should use his experience and stature to reform the legal process and mitigate its
scandalous delays and backlog of cases.
Kudos to Katju for bluntly putting forth his views on the abysmal
condition of 'education system' in India. I do share most of his points.
These are nothing but moral and intellectual corruption on part of
academicians which is even worse than material corruption.
As a retired academic scientist, I find Mr Katju's essay shallow and tinged with hubris. His analyses are utterly simplistic. For instance, "Rs.150 crore" annual budget for a large univ is actually measly. Modern research needs heavy inputs. Without that, "quality" is bound to suffer, and a vicious cycle sets in, because the best scientific brains leave the country out of frustration. Also, science depts. have become personal empires of persons with political patronage. As ECG Sudarshan said a long time ago, many who stay back are those with "power", who can pass judgment with impunity on persons better than they. "They can speak nonsense in physics, chemistry or mathematics." Our "top" scientists do exactly that. Actually, college and school teachers have to be much sounder in basics than univ professors, or the better students will catch them out. Finally, Mr Katju must learn from Faraday's reply to Gladstone on the practical value of electricity: "One day sir, you may tax it."
students who complete their studies using govt subsidiaries and scholar ships including iit and nit should be asked to work in India for at least 15yrs....when they don't have moral values as they know who is feeding their brains but still work for the others,a law should come in that place which benefits the nation........but sadly our govt is more about reservation politics and even sad are our ppl who proudly say....look we are so clever...lot of Indians are working in all western and European nations
I am disappointed thoroughly with Mr Katju's arguments. This seems like
another manifestation of his infinte bluff.
a very negative article by katju.mr. judge if nature has given two sides of a coin how can u give one side.that way democracy has also many negatives,PALLAVI is though right
On the matter of 1/0 = Infinity or not, the urgent need now is to fix an injustice possibly done. It is now the burden of Justice Mr Katju to dig out that old case at Allahabad High Court and re-examine whether or not the service matter of the poor mathematics lecturer in that university in Uttar Pradesh, needed a better judgement in the light of newly uncovered bias. Mr Katju, are you listening ?
All other points taken, however !
Infinity is also indeterminate,sir.The teacher was not wrong.
And you should also think about the reasons students opt for foreign companies.
Justice Katju has mentioned about deficiencies in the higher education system. Unfortunately, the same is true for our health system, political system, judicial system, transportation system, law and order etc. etc. I believe that we need to have a population policy to limit the growth of population as the land and water resources (two basic requirements for any living being besides, of course, air)are limited and would not increase. Secondly there is immediate need for improving our political system that is governing the nation and is, therefore, primarily responsible for the mess the country is in.
Also Justice Katju's assertion that 1/0 is indeterminate is not correct. In fact, it is infinite only. It is 0/0 which is indeterminate.
@Sidharth Tiwari The teacher failed to justify the answer, rather he blindly answered 'Infinity', which I believe is the point Mr. Katju wanted to show us.
continuing, I also disagree with the idea that education is for
raising the standard of living of masses and hence the purpose of
higher education is lost. With all due respect to the judge,
individuals make masses.
It was not until 6th pay commission that professors started receiving
some respectable salary (which is still very low). Research career in
India is not lucrative enough to attract talented young adults. There
are research institutes (IISc, TIFR, HRI, CMI etc) in this country
with great scholars. Have you heard of Dr. Ashok Sen recently
receiving the Fundamental Physics Prize? Research in science and
technology is not something that happens miraculously. It is due to
hard work of intelligent people and it takes time.
Government and private institutions should come together to improve
primary and secondary education in India. Simultaneously we need to
invest in higher education and research to improve its quality.
Though I agree with the point about the need to improve primary
education, I disagree with many aspects of the article. First of all,
I disagree that "most" students from IITs end up working in foreign
countries. I am an alumni of IIT Madras and I know for a fact that
only very few people get jobs outside India. Most of the students take
up jobs in India. I agree that most of these jobs are for MNCs or
financial sector, but I would like ask the author to point out other
alternative job opportunity that these graduates have. And most
students from IIT who go for MBA join IIMs and *NOT* US universities.
So, please do not make general statements without real statistics.
And as far as the 1/0 is concerned, it is indeed infinity. It is basic
concept of Limits and Continuity in Calculus.
@Vishaka Singh : Mathematics is not something that you "conclude" by
surfing through Google
Indeed a true picture of the state of affairs of Primary Education in
particular and higher education in general in our country!I am afraid
if the policy makers do not pay serious concern on such matter in its
totality, situation would be beyond our control and brain drain would
ruin the future of our country.The points raised by Sri Katju carries
conviction and needs attention of the elite planners of the country. I
would only say, if the disparity in primary & secondary and Higher
Education in the country is logically resolved and put in order, we
may move towards bringing back our old tradition where Gurukuls were
at the top! Thanks Sri Katju!
Case of '1' and '0'. While the topic for discussion deserves '1', author's essay deserves a '0'. Pity the math teacher who had to bear the brunt of such gross 'injustice.'
I found Justice Katju's analysis simplistic, superficial, sanctimonious, intended to criticse and devoid of any meaningful and constructive suggestions. No one can argue with the contention that our primary and secondary education system needs fundamental overhaul but to link it to the money being spent on tertiary education is at best tenuous and at worst betrays any serious understanding of the issue. University & premium institutes should be taken to task for not doing what they are expected to do i.e. carry out cutting edge research and advanced teaching but to hold them responsible for poor state of basic education is misleading. Katju needs to get rid of his own intellectual hubris to judge issues dispassionately- Math's teacher response to 1/0 was indeed technically wrong but what it had to do with the case for which Katju was expected to administer justice? One wonders whether he let his low opinion of teacher affect his legal judgment.This arrticle doesn't befit Hindu standard.
But for the author’s impressive title of a Retired Judge, It is doubtful if an article of this caliber will be considered for publication even in his own town flier, let alone in a “National Newspaper”. It is liberally garnished with vague allegations, unsubstantiated claims and outright inaccuracies (as in Mathematics). It appears we in India still nurture that old colonial tendency of over-rating official position at the expense of merit.
Without getting into details of Mr. Katju's arguments, his main point that the Indian education
system has failed to serve the needs of the most disadvantaged citizens of the country
deserves serious thought and corrective action. A few well educated Indians who go abroad
and do well there does not imply that all is well with our schools and colleges. Again the
problem is the dysfunctional governance system of our country. Look today at the standard
of living of countries like Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and China who were not much better
than India 60 years ago. Most Indians don't even have access to clean water or toilet. Two-
thirds of Indians live below the UN's poverty line, which most people know is pretty low. One
wishes that Indian masses were less tolerant of this level of deprivation and human indignity.
the idea behind the article, that is developing secondary education in
india, is appreciable one. but i don't see any logic in comparing
higher education and secondary education. if one spends, say some 10
lakh rupees we can get a fully equipped laboratory for a school
student. but in case of IITs and reputed universities, despite of
crores of sanctioned funds, they are not fully equipped with all
facilities for a research scholar to carry on his research. afterall,
all those noble laureates are involved in research requiring
sophisticated equipments and facilities. another point is that cutting
down the funds for those universities on the basis that students are
leaving our country to get job in foreign countries doesn't stop them
going. it's matter of providing them with good employment. as author
pointed that education in foreign countries is very costly, it is due
to the fact that large funds are involved in developing
infrastructure related issues
For every “evil person” example the writer cites I can think one of a noble counterpart. Examples do not a case make; evidence, statistics and facts do. Just a couple of samples: Compared to 1947 India’s population has multiplied by three times – but the food production has multiplied by almost ten times to 247.6 million tons. Literacy has gone up to almost 50% rising to 74.04% in 2012. The life expectancy has gone up from 32 years in 1900 to over 70 in 2012. Even a street vendor these days has a cell phone to ply his trade. All that translates to crores and crores of people seeing today as a better day than the days of yore. True, that’s no reason to sit idle. Instead of focusing on what we can do to improve the situation further, the article harps on clichés, bashing helpless people and harping on clichés about poorly qualified teachers. Spreading negativity is easy, but bears no fruit. To top it all, the tone is breathtakingly rude, a bad trait for wannabe opinion maker.
In response to the comment: Siddharth Tiwari
Posted on: Sep 3, 2012 at 15:42 IST
The author is right when he says 1/0 is indeterminate. Infinity as an answer would be okay for highschool but in the university setting, it does not suffice. Going by limits, the answer could be +/- infinity depending on which side of the limit you are appoaching. So the correct answer is that the limit is indeterminate.
This article brings up a lot of interesting issues I would like to
point out.
Firstly senior lecturers trying to promote their own caste teachers is
not surprising but I would like to point out that this happens in
every field , this is a unfortunately a product of our system from
politicians to doctors to contractors no need to isolate teachers for
this. The core is not accountability.
Secondly the way in which the math lecturer was deemed unfit with a
single question is typical of the all knowing indian professor, no
comprehensive eval just a single question and the verdict.
Thirdly people will go where it benefits them the most if you cannot
offer people a good environment to work in then why should they stay?
It is nice to talk about moral responsibility when it is not yours.
Why are there so many cases pending in our courts when we do pay our
judges well? How many law grads want to go in gove service?
Moral: Very easy to judge others but hard to apply those standards to
ourselves
No offences to the qualification of the author, but i think a more pragmatic approach should have been adopted by a man of his stature.
Apart from aking the author to get his statistics about primary education, poverty and salaries right; I would like to comment on the brain drain. Do you think scientists and engineers are less patriotic than any other citizens of india? Taking on intellectual pursuits is not cheap; massive amounts of funding, support and infrastucture is required for any research project. A luxury which India cannot afford at this point of time given issues like poverty. With this antecedent, moving to greener pastures is all but natural. If they chose to stay back in India it would lead to a brain ROT. A brain drain is anyday better, atleast 'somebody' is benefiting.
sorry to interrupt you but technically speaking one divided by a number
very small almost equal to zero is actually infinite.
Marvellous article, full of spot on observations, alas! all through
reading the essay I was thinking about the huge disservice that we call
the Indian judicial system- PHYSICIAN CURE THYSELF.
Except for the comment about the maths teacher, all arguments are valid.
the comment about the maths teacher however speaks more about the
arrogance of the Judge.
An Enlightening read however.
It seems Justice Katju have worked as judge for several years and he
still thinks that, whatever he says is right and others are wrong.
he may have great knowledge in law but it does not means he is expert
of everything. 1 divided by zero can be interpreted as infinity also
otherwise he should rewrite math books taught in schools.
He is now chairman of press council. he did not made any positive
change in the press just he says some arbitrary things and comes in
the news. If he want good change he is so capable of doing it in his
position of chairman of press council. May be he can start from there.
Just saying everyone is bad will not making anything good
Very sorry to say that we Indians show their colour......Profession does not matter ;whether it is a politician, police officer or professor. And the reason is simple; education is not given in its true sense.
Professors think that they are not meant for teaching students or helping them in their studies bcz they are getting salaries in lakhs... How a person who takes hefty money can waste their time in stupid activities like teaching or correcting marks sheets???
Mr Katju's criticisms though valid are severely biased.Think of a
situation if there were no IITs.There wouldnt have been an N R Narayana
Murthy ,an Infosys and thousands of happy employed people.These high
standard institutions play a critical though invisible role in Indias
growth.If there is Brain Drain ,its not the problem of institutions, but
policies of govt that fail to provide conducive environment for their
retention.
Dear Justice Katju, u have only IITs, Universites etc in mind while making your comments, but may I ask do u know something about our govt colleges across the country? In one college about 10,000 students, no rooms, no furniture, teachers busy with only admissions, student elections, exam forms, extra exams of govt for some recruitments, exams of B.ed students, CA students, cultural programmes of student leaders,then final exams......so nation and people like you should be grateful to Teachers that atleast we keep students busy through out a year otherwise they will create anarchy in the society if left at large? can u imagine what will happen if exams are conducted by police,judiciary,civil baboos etc, they will go home with lakhs of rupees in their pockets as bribe for copying in exam hall? Justice Katju, if there are only 20 FRS in India, then please tell me how many Gold medals you have in olympics? Justice Katju, we are typically Indians(society)(including u) same story everywhere
This is the true story. Most of the money is spent for the premier
institutes in India. But, still Indians are able to communicate and read
in English. That's amazing. In most of the progressed nations, like
Germany, France people are able to communicate only by their native
dialect. This is the thing for which a lot of outsourcing works are done
in India. www.indiaedu.com is a good website that tells you the story of
education in India. You can get a feeling of the number of schools,
colleges and universities in India. And the number is still increasing.
Very poorly argued piece of writing. Is this the intellectual level of our senior judges? I hope not. The writer betrays an ignorance of how higher education benefits the economy as a whole. After Independence the shortage of qualified people was acutely felt. Without the emphasis on funding institutions of higher learning, there would have been no post-independence progress in any industry.
The argument about Nobel prizes is pathetic. That level of research requires a formidable infrastructure, and for someone who has misgivings about the spending on higher eduction, I doubt he would agree to raising research spending by, say 1000%. And likewise, the talk of FRS - will someone shake these judges out of their colonial sleep - we are no longer a British colony, and our academics don't care for FRS any more.
It is most amusing to read "In my usual blunt way I said"....The object seems to be to provoke the listeners, and nothing else.
Justice Katju's commentary on our educators is well meaning, and is written with good
intentions. But he can not escape the criticism he levels against the educators. Like
"teachers discussing politics in staff room and not academic matters", Katju Sir talks about
everything other than law and judiciary. I request him to write a commentary on how our
judiciary is serving India's masses... How about questioning amounts of money spent to "give
judges huge salaries and fine houses to live in rather than to benefit the Indian people."
I have several points of disaggrements with Mr Katju and though highly unlikely to publish , let me put them up. All the points you have raised are already very well laid out in public and almost everyone knows about it whether be the IIT brain drain or wrong doings of some Govt. teachers. Coming to the point of being paid only when you do justice to large masses, does that mean that the judges of various courts should also stop enjoying the facilities that governmnet provides them as there are so many cases pending.
I have seen several articles of yours pointing out errors , that is good very good but Mr. katju now is the time to come up with solutions which i find nowhere in your article. You may find a place in daily newspaper with it and feel happy about it but the achievement it has got is sadly zero.
The article (Professor,teach thyself) is the mirror of present education system in India."The development of any country is depending upon the education system follows by that country ".When we will proudly say India is developed country while we are following the poor education system?.
You have raised a very poignant point indeed, however I would also like to draw your attention to the following points : a) You mentioned having come across student from rural India not able to solve problem. However one need not go that far, government school in Mumbai and Delhi are no better.student teacher ratio can be as warped as 1:100. b)To look other way round yes, 250 students is not an ideal number but I am happy children are enrolling in school and have hunger for knowledge
c)Teachers are at the end of day are human and petty conversation on politics can also be much of academic relevance. There needs to top down change in approach. To begin with increase budgetary allocation for education.Change the way you train your teachers.Allocation of money for teachers training, hire experts if
need be. Address problems of teachers, don't pester them for mundane
work in teaching hours like filling how many students got uniform.
One needs change in outlook towards education !
I would like to digress from the primary point of the article,
with which
I completely agree and talk about the anecdote mentioned in the
article
where Justice Katju asked a mathematics lecturer how much one
divided by
zero is equal to. I'd like the readers to take note of the point
that
'Infinity' is indeed the correct answer to this question. 0/0 is
indeterminate because it can take multiple value depending on the
limit
being calculated (ex: 2x/x; x->0 is 2 where as 5x/x; x->0 is 5)
whereas
any finite number divided by 0 (ex: 1/0) is an impermissible
operation,
which is just another way of saying that the result is infinite
(i.e. an
absurdly large number)
As such I don't agree with Justice Katju. He may be correct in taking up the matter of mass education but more importantly he missed the importance of higher education which is as much needed as primary education for masses. No lesser fund is spent on primary education but it is spent mostly in giving scholarship or on administrative jobs or it is simply siphoned off by corrupt system. More prudence is required in spending money for all levels of education and provisions should be made to attract not restrict intelligent brains.
@ Vanamali.. earlier i was also thinking the same way as we all hv been
taught in our schools that 1/0= Infinite. But after reading this article,
i surfed Google and come to a conclusion that it is not infinite but is
equal to Indeterminate Form
Justice Markandey Katju’s indictment of the ‘professor’ (The Hindu, OP-ED, Sept.3, 2012) does not do justice to anyone. It requires lot of statistics more to prove that the ‘salaries and houses’ of the professors cause ‘dire poverty, unemployment, skyrocketing prices, problems of health care, (lack of) housing etc.’ of the Indian masses. ‘Huge salaries and fine houses’ are not universal to all professors. Nor are they exclusive to them. Rigorous comparison of budgetary provisions for various ministries, departments and agencies with those of UGC and JNU, regarding size of funds and benefit to the masses, should have been made before targeting higher education. How can anyone blame the professors if they “are often appointed not on merit but on extraneous considerations, like political connection, caste etc.”? In fact, the considerations for appointment, promotions and perquisites in all areas of Administration, as in UGC or JNU, are decided mostly by political power. No wonder there are instances of low intellect and poor quality of research among professors so appointed and promoted. Thus the true culprit is clear. Disorienting employees, including professors, from “petty politics, often of a casteist nature, or matters pertaining to their service conditions” and orienting them to their academic, professional or administrative concerns cannot be tackled singly but only on a general outlook. While there are many truths in Justice Katju’s narration, like irregular teachers and insufficient infrastructure in primary and middle schools and brain drain and poor research records in higher education, he has no reason to tell “Professor, teach thyself”. Changes should begin with our political system which unfortunately is acceptedly corrupt and criminalized.
Essentially, Mr. Katju is arguing for improvement in the quality of
education which requires enormous funding by the government. Any world
class university today has to be provided with at least one billion
dollars per annuum to maintain excellent standards. We may ask
ourselves whether we are matching up to it in India. We may also
improve legal education by providing more funds in that sector so that
there may be better-educated jurists who can understand the national
problems in depth.
This puts another Hindu report in perspective. It was reported that
the academic journal publisher Elsevier promoted Indian higher education and research as having achieved quality-citation status,
which was pounced upon by some sources as the certificate of
excellence of Indian higher education. However, elsewhere in the
alleged "profligate" universities of the West, the publisher was being
rejected by various universities and distinguished academics and
scholars for charging profligate amounts for publishing below-par
research and various other malpractices, to which the publisher's
response was nothing short of atrocious and rude. However I never
found a single case of a single professor protesting against Elsevier
in any of our universities.
Of course, the government is spending all the money only on HIGHER-EDUCATION. Even the higher-education is not fully developed. Those who score 98.5% is +2 are not given seats in Government Medical Colleges. The same situation is prevailing in IITs and IIMs. Majority of the students with very good academic records prefer MS or MBA in USA. What the government is doing to prevent those going to USA and UK and offering the same quality education in India itself? This question remains unanswered for a long time. Is India lacking anything? We have all that is required to make us a world leader in education. We have all the capacities to educate the whole USA. Why the government is hesitating to venture into this opportunity to bring the best of the students from all quarters of the world and educate them here in India? We are leader in the IT field. We have huge man-power to become Professors. Is the government listening?
I agree with most of Katju's remarks on the contemporary education scenario in India, especially the bit on the dearth of good primary and 2ndary teachers and facilities. Very good observation! What I couldn't really agree is how the no. of Nobels and FRSes can be used to gauge the standard of education and research of a country. Not everyone wishes to be educated in the hope of bagging a Nobel, and membership of an archaic British society is no marker for one's scientific prowess! I wonder how many FRSes and Nobel laurettes have really had a positive impact at the grassroot level. These people represent the limits of human intellectual ability. For betterment of the society we need more 'average' school teachers and not a handful of trophy laurettes to show off to the world.
I read the article and found it extremely preachy. I sympathize with the university teacher who was at the receiving end of Mr. Katju. He was perhaps conveying the meaning of 1 divided by 0 to a layman, was he expected to give a formal definition of a limit tending to infinity there?
I am shocked that a reputed newspaper like Hindu does not double check the contents of an article for its correctness before publishing it.
The comments made by Mr. Katju on this are incorrect and should have been edited by a competent person before publishing.
I hope the editors will read these comments and improve the editing system for their newspaper.
".huge amounts of money of the Indian taxpayer is spent on the IITs
and other institutes of higher education, but the graduates of these
institutes usually take up jobs in foreign countries." What else
would a young man do when opportunities are high jacked by the
privileged? Everybody is not born with a silver spoon. In order to
check brain drain our system must change. Everybody should abide by
rule of law which by its very nature is antithetical to
arbitrariness actuated by favoritism, nepotism, cronyism and kindred
narrow considerations.
By Rule of law I mean, over and above its conventional sense, the
connotation embracing the individuals' attitude of steadfast law
abidance too. People should not get ready to grab opportunities
walking over the heads of others including peers. Such self
restraint bathed in fairness will alone inspire others to follow
suit and in this context will encourage the talented stay at home
and serve their own country.
It is absolutely correct narrated by our former judje.. i totally agree with his points.. I could see many schools in Tamilnadu still not have proper facilities.. students sitting under the tree for learning.. The things should be changed.. I had an oppourtunity to visit to IIT kanpur last month and i relly wondered the money which they spent to maintain the hostels and mess.. i compared with those things with the noon meals scheme students in tamilnadu.. I worried much.. The basic foundation lies in rual schools only.. it should be improved...
This article is laudable on the ground of highlighting the apathy of Primary/Secondary/Tertiary education in India.Its time that India has to concentrate on investing into Regional Level / State Universities and let IIT/IIM raise money for themselves(Their fee structure is way higher too).All States too have the prerogative to invest and develop institutions that could compete with IIT/IIMs.This in turn will be a catalyst for investing into Research and Development in India.
Research and Development is not much of an attractive asignment in India.The cause is that an Engineer/Doctor makes more money than a scientist.Our R&D apathy is worser than our medal tally in Olympics.
Even Private Firms tend to license technology than to develop technology. The R&D effort in Private firms exists as an afterthought and many of their assignments are on the BackBurner.
The debate raised in this column is good.But I request The Hindu to
publish, it's study on the simple ways to improve our education system.
So that, the interested people can contribute voluntarily.
Our education system is like a one-legged pigeon shown in the picture. When it
needs support by fellow pigeon, in our case - rest of the country-men, it is
being left alone and criticized severely. The audience Professors in your
conversation did not seem to counter your arguments owing to your stature, but
your salary argument is flawed. When you compare the research outputs, did you
compare the salaries of Professors in US or other-world country?
I agree with insufficient research outputs of higher learning institutes, but
the possible reason for that is lack of research facilities. Although funds are
being disbursed, but proper allotment, utilization, and management is more
important to see the things materialized.
mind boggling article by justice Kataju. Its matter of concern that
Govt. is pumping lot of money to few higher education institutes where
less than 1% of masses gain bookish knowledge and they brain drain to
get lucrative jobs.
An extremely disappointing article from Mr Katju but is more or less
on par with his "wise" utterings these days. Dear Mr Katju, please
talk with few professors/teachers in depth to get their perspective as
well. It would be an interesting exercise to look at results from
similar examination of legal luminaries who adorn our courts.
I am not a teacher myself but must say that our teachers on the
average deliver more than what they are compensated for by the state
and society.
Rightly written after pondering in on such a grave issue.
I often met with people in punjab who proudly say "assi vehle rehan de paise laine han"( they are earning off not doing anything).And specialy teacher fraternity is enjyoying this.
Our government should come up with a right plan at earlist to curb this serious issue to raise the standard of education and hence the masses in india.This can be the one way of becoming a developed nation by eradicating the developing nation from our(India) status.
We are lacking at the Level of Education at low -middle level in India ,The need of the hour is to focus on the real power (middle class) .Due to lack of quality education people are not able to Uplift there standards .Look at the standard of Education at Nagar Nigam School & other reputed Institutes at the same time ,we can easily realize the difference !!
Firstly,this article is very timely in view of the Teachers day,5th Sprtember.Secondly,Justice (retd)Katju's views are indisputably pertinent and factual.One point Mr katju may have missed to mention is the fact that the total allocation for education in India is very little in view of our huge population which shows our rulers' attitude towards the subject.It is a shame.
1/0 is indeed infinity. Or, if you want to be picky, it tends to
infinity. OTOH, 0/0 is indeterminate (one of the many indeterminate
forms). We should be careful when we venture outside our area of
expertise. To be fair to Justice Katju, I agree with most of the
observations he has made in this essay (except the maths faux paus!).
Brain drain is a bitter fact which is prevalent from ages. The money spent on prestigious institutes like IITs, IIMs don't go worth as students from these institutes prefer to work mostly in foreign countries for fat salaries. The mindset of ours have always been to opt for the courses/studies which can give us better revenues and not very less as per our interests. Nobel laureates and research guys certainly don't make compromise with their interests.
Justice Katju, If you castigate a hapless teacher sitting on the high pedestal of High Court bench, the 'creature' cannot respond for fear of contempt of court. I don't find anything wrong with the teacher reply to your question. Did you presume that 'infinity' is a number at the far end of the series Million, Billion, Trillion... etc? Infinity is not a finite number, it is not even a number. You are wrong in saying that one divided by zero gives you "indeterminate number" because anything divided by zero does not give you a 'number', determinate or indeterminate, finite or infinite. You betrayed your ignorance; not that of the maths teacher. The best one can say about your comment is that it is just semantics - you used the term 'indeterminate number' the teacher used 'infinity' both being ambiguous concepts just as division by zero.
Most of the other points made by you are valid and I salute you for that. But don't try to paint everyone else as ignorant fools.
I fully agree with the learned judge regarding the ills plaguing the
Indian educational system. When I was working as a bank manager in an
interior village in Kolar district I was witness to children commuting
on bus tops to reach their school and the conductors of private buses
were collecting fare from them. Most of the time the children were
being ill treated by the bus crew. In my inter-action with the
children I was surprised to find most of them to be very sharp and
capable of picking up anything taught to them. They were singularly
lacking of opportunities unlike their much pampered city counterparts.
I have also seen teachers indulging in casteist talks in their
teacher’s rooms. Sometimes the head master also participates in such
discussions. Many of our teachers have all kinds of biases and gender
insensitive.
Like Universal Health Care schemes, Free and Compulsory education schemes too are in the news these days. When many instances of Child Labour that too in Hazardous Industries have been found in Delhi and NCR itself, the question of focusing on Tertiary Education assumes paramount importance. The question then becomes first and foremost a question of Access rather than a question of Quality as Mr Katju points out. When you don't even have a school to go to; how good your teacher is hardly matters. But the author has a point in questioning the International Level Output that our Institutes of Higher Education have been coming up with. But comparisons with Foreign Universities seems a point stretched too far.
It is beautiful article whereby some of the problems with our education system have been brought out. These are problems that everyone has been discussing since quite some time now, but discussing problems is one thing and finding and implementing solutions for the problem is another thing. The question, I feel, that needs answering is How do we start to set right the education system?
I appreciate Justice Katju's plain-speak, the academics in this country
are accountable, even if not fully, for the plight of education in
India. However, may I ask Justice Katju who is responsible for the sad
state of the justice system in our country?
So what are those things the professors ought to do?
Judge Katju has raised several important issues about primary and higher education in India. One thing he has not pointed out is the tendency of 'expert indians' to pass comment and judgement on everything under the sun. Judge has no expertise to pass a judgement on the quality of the maths teacher. The question he asked the teacher is presumptuous and shows the contempt he has for the school teachers. The answer given by the school teacher is not wrong and the Judge should realize the teacher is talking to school students and not maths scholars. He seems unaware of the fact the UGC does not control IITs. The government's initiative in giving large funds to the universities is to raise their standard. The judge's time can be better spent on judicial reforms, where he must have acquired real expertise.
Prima facie the former Judge has made a case for the Central Govt to encourage universities to accept budget cuts or raise funds through research initiatives and alumni donations.
He also makes the case for Central funding of vocational courses which will directly lead to jobs and raising the standard of living in India. The private sector in India is crying for qualified labour and they may well fund this partially. If they pay private companies one months salary for a placement, surely they can pay this to government vocational institutes ?
Govt. should build and support world class institutes of higher learning. Even if most of these people may go abroad the few staying back would benifit our country a lot. New techniques in education should be adopted. Better administration is needed in rural areas.
Enlightening column revealing today's standard of education. In addition to the above every year billions of rupees collected as Educational Cess from all over India on each and every transactions, are added to the idle funds, which is mostly spent on administrative purposes rather than improving the facilities and infra structures for the pupil/students and no statistics forthcoming on this issue.
There are several Teachers on the Govt. role who are normally absent and engaged in Coaching outside the school and other professions
and if caught take recourse to the Union Culture and come out of the legal hurdles and this vicious circle continues Eduction has become an Industry for making fast buck and many Institutions without even the basic infrastructure as per standard are granted permissions with nexus between Politicians.
Today's Educational Institutions entangled with Students Union affiliated to Political Outfits churn out more Politicians and subverts than Academicians.
I fully agree with the views expressed in the article.Today universities have
become islands with no relation with the realities of the wider society.And
teachers are like frogs in the well.Time,money and paper is being wasted and cut
and paste is done on the name of research and producing ph-d thesis.Teacher
community is well aware of this rot which has set in in higher learning
institutions but true to their middle class character,they put the blame on the
'system',but don't refuse shamelessly even taking three newspapers every month
from tax payers money,besides taking huge pay cheque every month.( central
universities teachers for example IGNOU's teachers are entitled for two or three
news papers per month).And there is no unaccountably.Promotion and rise in
salary is just a matter of routine.In USA,a teacher has to work seven years and
he/she is evaluated every year by the students,satisfactory score continuously
for seven years gives him/her permanent position.
Very valid observations by educated enlightened writer indeed; true much of our Govt money towards education of under privileged is mismanaged - schools in rural areas do not have proper facilities and teachers selected on recommendations, who treat their job as optional vocation, not committed to service of poor; Gone ared days of teachers who took special interest to ensure their students learnt properly to get jobs and stand on own legs !
Too much of commercialisation and corruption at political levels takes away most of the allotted funds, and only publicity made that interest shown in the segment of education. Pity indeed; even in British days, our school folks got better attention for self development sure ! Only opportunities were limited to some areas !
Pray our leaders show more interest in this vital aspect.
A very fair argument put up by Justice Katju! There is a need of serious
priority analysis by the government, or else we shall be the reason of
our own perish.
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