Education Muddle

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.