The most important sector which is crying for ‘Achche Din’ is India’s education sector.
Let us admit it. We have no education policy for the country. The only policy
that exists today is a badly mutilated education policy thrust on India by Lord
Macaulay (1800-1859). His mission was to create an education system which will produce
a class of persons Indian in colour and blood, but English in tastes, in opinions, in moral and in intellect. Lord Macaulay achieved his results. He was
able to produce generations of Indians not proud of her heritage and culture.
After independence we have been tinkering with this
system of education. Our leaders have been thrusting their ideas on the nation
without a national debate on the education policy. One of such outcome of the
dreams of few leaders is the lofty concept of ‘right to education’. If you do not create and maintain educational
infrastructure how do you implement this policy. Just look at the state of
government run schools. They are a monumental tribute to the apathy of our
politicians towards our poor young generations.
We have no schools in the interiors of our country.
Where we have built some schools they are not in a condition to create a
learning atmosphere. Teachers are missing from schools and government has no
mechanism to ensure that they are present in the classrooms.
Private educational entrepreneurs have tried to build
a parallel educational network in the country. There is a huge demand for
quality educational institutes which these trusts and NGOs try to provide to
people. Many of such institutions are run by politicians and their cohorts. Due
to rivalry between them they come out with policies – when in power – to make
life difficult for their competitors in education business. Students suffer due
to the flip flop in educational policies.
Students should have freedom to learn what they want
to learn. What is the need for two language or three language systems? Why the
government wants to force even the number of languages a student has to learn?
Let there be educational institutions who offer education in any language. If
there is a need and if they provide quality education, parents will send their
wards to such institutions.
One has to understand the difference between learning
and the ability to communicate. Learning has to be in a language in which a
student is comfortable. Once the student has mastered his own mother tongue and
has learnt how to think and communicate in his/her own mother tongue s/he can
always learn more languages based on the need and circumstances where they are
placed.
Education is the most crucial aspect in a student’s
life and bringing about transformation in our future generation. Every government
since independence have made plans for educating tribal children, poor in
villages and in rural areas, lower and middle class students in semi urban and
urban areas up to school level. The effectiveness of these plans is no open
secret and does not need any research. Our leaders in government create controversies
and enjoy the focus and bask in that glory.
The higher education system in the country is in a
bigger mess. Students have simply no choice for learning subjects they want to
specialize. We produce graduates in arts, commerce, and engineering without
giving them freedom for inter-disciplinary knowledge.
The government is only engaged in the politics of
appointment of Vice-chancellors. There is an urgent need to really find out the
contribution of our Hon. Governors of States as Chancellors to the
universities. Why don't we do away with the system of having Hon. Governor as the Chancellor of the university? There can be a professional governing council, like IIMs and IITs and the chairperson of this governing council may be appointed as the Chancellor.
Today, Universities have become a playground for every other
aspect of social and political life but education and sports which students at
their age supposed to engage in. We are following a mixture of every education
system in the world. We have residential universities, affiliated college
systems in universities, autonomous institutions and professional bodies giving
diplomas and post graduate diplomas equivalent to graduation and post-graduation.
The list is endless.
All the Universities in India generally fall into the
following three categories, based on their organizational structure: Affiliating Universities, having University
Departments, Constituent Colleges and Affiliated Colleges, with single or
multiple campuses; Unitary Universities having University Departments and
Constituent Colleges, with single or multiple campuses; Private Universities, mostly of the unitary type and
having distributed campuses.
Conventional Universities form a significant segment
of the University system in India. Most of them are multi-faculty institutions
engaged in general education in faculties like Arts, Science, and Commerce.
They also have a provision to recognize some affiliated colleges of proven
merit as autonomous colleges.
While, University funding by Central/State Governments
has been a well-established tradition in the country, the setting up of
professional Universities (e.g., technical, medical, law) and deemed
Universities (by Private/Joint Sector) is relatively new in the country.
Private Universities are expanding rapidly in recent years.
Besides the above differences in types of
Universities, there are also wide variations in their working cultures. More
often, the Universities have a culture that is a mix of academic and
bureaucratic cultures. While the academic units like faculties, departments,
colleges, schools are generally academic in their approach, the central
administration manned by officials may not be so. And, it is often likely to be
of the bureaucratic type. Sometimes, this can result in difficulties, as
academic decisions being based on committees’ deliberations may not be always
easy and practical for implementation by the concerned officials.
Whenever someone has tried to reform existing
universities the effort has been politically motivated and is faced with
confrontation from their ideological opposition. These leaders buried in their
ideological moorings just do not care about the future of students. They want
to create cadres for their political expedition from universities. The common citizens and students have no mechanism to
challenge the existing inefficient systems. Political leaders feel that since
there is no scope for improving the current system let us bring foreign universities
and give them a free hand. This will create another level of chaos in the
education system in the country where those who have the resources will have
access to a different system of learning and poor and under privileged class
coming out of factory system of current universities. The Indian constitution
promises equity and equality. With such policies we will be creating further
divide in the society.
When it comes to imparting skills the
education system in the country has simply given no thought to it. There are no centres for skill learning. Most of our masons, carpenters, electricians,
drivers, and mechanics have ‘on the job’ learning. Those who have no access to
education, they simply apprentice with relatives and friends and learn the trick
of the trade. There is no monitoring of the quality of ‘skill-training’. They
use ‘jugad’ as the tool and have made the word world famous.
The current education system does not
produce scientists in the field of physics or chemistry. Our educational institutes
produce clerks and babus of every order.
In turn these babus control the education system and produce
their own replicas. We have hardly produced very few world class scientist
post-independence. All the world class scientists, whom we name proudly, were produced
before independence. If we cannot create an army of scientists in basic sciences,
the country will always be lagging in innovation. It is not that Indians are
not intelligent and diligent enough. Many Indians have made the country proud
by their work abroad. The question is why they could not do so
in India?
Our current university education system does
not connect students with the real world. We create experts with bookish
knowledge. Some of whom are occupying higher positions in the government and
are destroying the fabric of the country.
Our education system should also act as a contributor
to our culture, socio-economic development and character building of individuals
and communities, supporting nation building. Our universities should enable us
to continuously assess, adapt and apply new knowledge. They have simply failed
in this task.
The current status of our universities has forced
economically sound and bright students to go abroad. They pay much more than
the fees paid by local students. Still they feel that it is worth to pay such a
high cost to bring them at the competitive level with theirs in the world. Even
in India, we have started recognizing the superiority of foreign education and
are opening the flood gates to foreign trained and educated professors to
occupy higher positions. Anyone with a foreign degree is automatically
considered superior to an equivalent Indian professional. We have ourselves
denigrated the value of Indian education.
There is a need for big intervention by government in the university system. We have now enough IITs and IIMs. Government should set up one new university for every one crore population with new flexible structure of learning where students can take subjects of their choice. The government should introduce transferable credit system in these new universities. The fact that students are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to go abroad to dubious institutions is an indication of the huge mismatch between demand and supply of higher education within India. Let the existing universities function the way they are.
Research contributions of our existing faculties is another issue. We do not consider the research published in Indian
journals of any merit. Rather than creating our own world class research
journals we have put a premium on publishing abroad. Researchers in India are
forced to collaborate with professors or researchers from foreign universities
so that their paper can be published in foreign journals.
We need to bring ‘Achche
Din’ in the field of education – at all levels. We can not improve our schools just by building toilets. Toilets should have been there in the first place.
There is a crying need for transparency in our
educational institutions. Every educational institution (whether public or
private) should publish an annual report with details of the infrastructure and
facilities available, profiles of the trustees and the administrators, the
academic qualifications and experience of the staff, the courses offered, the
number of students, the results of the examinations, the amount of funds
available to the university and the sources of funding etc. In addition, every
educational institution must get itself rated by an independent rating agency
like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE and publicly announce its rating to prospective
students to enable the students to choose the institution they want to enrol in.
At one stroke, this will bring in transparency and
ensure that every educational institution, whether public or private, is
accountable not only to those students who are studying in the institution, but
to prospective students and the public at large as well. Public announcements
of the financial and educational records of the institutions as well as their
ratings by independent rating agencies will generate healthy competition
between the various private institutions and will also put pressure on the
Government funded institutions to work towards all-round improvement.
Such a system is already in place for maritime
education in India. In 2004, the Directorate General of Shipping (DGS), which
regulates maritime education in India, introduced a system of rating maritime
training institutions in India. In 1996, maritime education was opened to
private sector participation and over 130 private institutions are in operation
today. To ensure that all institutions provide high quality education, the DGS
has asked all maritime educational institutions to get themselves rated by one
of the three reputed independent rating agencies in India – CRISIL, CARE or
ICRA. The publicly announced ratings will benefit
- The students, in deciding which institution to enroll in,
- The institutes, in differentiating themselves based on their quality,
- The employers, in assessing the quality of students graduating from the institutes and
- The DGS as well, to non-intrusively regulate the maritime education sector and ensure high quality of education.
Introducing a similar model across all other sectors
of education including engineering, medicine, arts, sciences etc. will ensure
that only those institutions with better facilities, staff and infrastructure
and reputations will thrive. This will go a long way in ensuring the provision
of quality higher education not only in the private sector, but in the public
sector as well.
The
Centre and the States should pass legislation to make it mandatory for all
higher education institutions to publish a detailed annual report of their
financial and educational status and also be rated by independent rating
agencies and publicly announce their ratings.
We must follow three principles: First Principle:
Government should play a minimal part in education. But, “Limited government role
does not mean indifferent government”.
Second Principle: Freedom
of education, with right to learn as well as teach.
Third Principle:
“Education is religion – provided it is practical and pays dividends”
The only way out of the mess is not the ‘right to
education’ but the ‘right to teach’. The right to teach has been embedded in
our culture in the ‘Guru-Shishya
Parampara’. Most of the education in the field of classical dance and music
still happens in the traditional ‘right to teach’ system. These are the only
areas where we are still producing world class talent.
Indian society has always recognized the ‘right to
teach’. This process helps in decentralizing the ‘skill education’ in society.
This is till happening in every craft and traditional knowledge system but we
have closed our eyes on that reality. We need to empower our ‘Gurus’ and enable them to issue diplomas
and degrees for their craft.
India has a huge demographic advantage. Our current
education system reduces it to the biggest disadvantage. More than 90% of the
money earning skills do not require a traditional university degree. Because of
the pressure of the society young people are forced to go to the existing
universities and obtain degrees – wasting crucial time in their life. Those who
do not perform well join their traditional business and earn much more than
those who go to the universities. There are examples in politics and business
where such people have excelled and created business organizations and
institutions where people graduating from universities are employed.
We need to create a legal framework where ‘right to
teach’ is recognized.
There are numerous jobs in temples and other religious
institutions. One does not need to go to universities to take care of these
institutions. Many temples have their own training schools and Ashrams. Mosques have their own ‘Madarasa’.
They should be allowed to issue legally recognized certificates and diplomas to
their wards. Parents recognize the value of such learning and send their children
there. Why the government cannot recognize them?
Just as there is fundamental right to learn, our
culture believed in a fundamental right to teach. A teacher could collect his
pupils under the shade of an ashvattha tree, if he is acknowledged as
knowledgeable, acceptable to the society and has means to do so. That is what
used to happen in our society and s/he was known as “Acharya”. Our
literature is full of such universities (Ashrams)
run by Vyas, Vashishtha, Markandeya, Vishwamitra, Gautam, Chanakya and other rishis.
This is not possible in modern era, as the government and the modern university
system do not allow an “Acharya” to
confer nationally or internationally recognized degrees.
“Right to
Teach’ would create centres of learning in every area of art and craft. There
will be huge employment generation and students will not be fighting for
reservations in government jobs.
Let the ‘Achche
Din’ in education begin.
