Awaiting enlightenment
In Cry for Freedom, former Wuhan University President Liu Daoyu is talking about the Chinese education system, but much of what he says about the early education crisis in China could have been said verbatim, for the present challenges in India’s higher education system.
Particularly, this:
“we must lift the screws on people’s minds and tap into their initiative and enthusiasm.”
Most of us have noticed the gradual politicisation of India’s colleges over the last few decades, but we rarely debate how insidious the effects of this are on innovation in higher education. The lack of independence for our vice-chancellors and deans, the politicisation of student unions, the dependence on the government for budget and spending approvals - all these make our universities risk-averse, dogmatic, and finally unable to fulfil their main function: equipping their students to function effectively, and productively, in the economy.
Consider how rigid our colleges are: in India, we have still not embraced the concept of cross-disciplines. An Indian student from year one in college, can either do an engineering or a commerce degree. In fact, he does not attend a university in the true sense; he has to function within the narrow confines of a specific department. Universities in Europe, US and increasingly in China on the other hand, allow students the flexibility to choose their subjects, even switch between majors if they find that their interests have shifted to say, marine biology rather than medicine by the second year.
The rigid system that our colleges now use do students a disservice. How for example, can a student be certain that she wants to become a software engineer unless she first takes a few courses? Perhaps, the student might discover a bent for research, or for computer graphics. Its unreasonable to lock someone in at the age of eighteen, right out of school, onto a particular career path.
(This is the first of some higher education posts. I’ll follow up with more thoughts.)
Tags: challenges, Cry for freedom, higher education, Liu Daoyu, Wuhan University
May 8th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Right from primary education the system need a rejig. Curriculum is another factor. There is no way you can validate which system is best. Anglo Indian, CBSE, Matric, State baoard and the quality of people coming out of it. You need to create your on validation mechanisms like Infy recruitment process at any level.
The accredition process for colleges, courses and universities are totally corrupt.
Also for kindling the research mentality we need a different kind of system altogether which can reward risk taking. We dont have even in corporates that culture let alone education system.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Apart from our strict discipline system am also sick of the bench mark for students to pass. Many students discontinue their studies after failing in their earlier grades. We need a lenient system which allows students to continue studies until their college years.
We also need to experiment a bit in our education system to try some of our old gurukul system…
May 9th, 2009 at 8:20 am
I wonder when will the INDIAN universities will compete each other in the sciencea research. Scientist should be given there due respect and research in science should be regarded as the way forward for INDIA. We have been forced in to the mentality of adapting technology instead of innovating for our needs. We are below standard in higher education because of lack of competition among university. It is for sure that all the universities seats will get filled, given state of demand we have in INDIA. We should find a way to promote competition among universities
May 9th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Well, why should we encourage cross-disciplines ? Wouldn’t that result in ‘jack of all trades’ ? That 4 years we spend in a college for engineering is perhaps basic minimum to be knowledgeable in that field.
However, the “education” should force students/professors in diversifying. What we don’t see in the current system (as you have pointed out) is the “cross-pollination”. After all, outside of academia, life is pretty inter-connected. Using computer graphics to locate deformities in a steel section, work on electrical motors to drive a pump, use s/w to automatically control sluice gates, etc.
But, to encourage this by introducing concept of cross-disciplines is perhaps…”over-zealous”. Instead, get final year students to deliver “cross-discipline” projects with project manager from the industry.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Cross disciplining is good if it is a life long process. Often, youngsters come to a job with multiple degrees only to find they do not like or are not able to do the job. This is because there is so much disconnect between what you learn and what is demanded in a job. One should start working at around 20 with some basic qualification and then you can specialise once you know the job market and what you are capable of.
Employer attitude also should change. They are also obsessed with degrees and qualifications which forces prospective employees to acquire as many as possible. Instead of relying on bio data and certificates, it is time aptitude tests are used to filter out good from poor applicants, with a lesser emphasis on qualifications.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Err..and doesnt the same go for corporate india as well? The school like companies with school like discipline?
May 9th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Mr Nilekani has restored my faith in human logic,
for six years I have been trying to get some company or organisation interested in an IT scheme, that could prove as popular as “Google”.
Unfortunately all our men of ‘vision’ seem to surround themselves with a inpenatrable ring of dullards, totally devoid of imagination.
Because they are unable to grasp the concept of my idea, they view it with total negativity.
We could do with more minds like his here in Britain, we were once a nation of inovative people, where have they all gone?
May 10th, 2009 at 10:51 am
As a Muslim, I am angry that Congress which has been in power for nearly 55 years out of the last 60 (and that claims to represent minority rights) cannot deliver on the rhetoric. Keeping Muslims and other Indians poor serves the Congress and the Left much better. An uneducated person will believe the campaign promises. An educated person will see through the lies.
So far, there is no political drive for development or governance or to improve the educational system. This is the bottleneck, despite well meaning professors and industry luminaries like yourself.
As it is election time, would you, Nandan-ji, please comment on which parties education policies you are impressed by and why? Who will actually have an incentive to deliver? The only party to have a manifesto on education and IT is the BJP and it is in their campaign slogan. I think it will be more difficult for them to renege on the promise than Congress.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I couldn’t agree more with you. I remember one of my friends wanted to pursue Machanical Engg. and do some course in Automobile Engg. as well. And the two are very congruent fields of work unlike marine biology\medicine as stated as an example by you !
So now what does he do, gets the same course in USA because it wasn’t available in India, cos the bottom line is that he’s an above average student.
So not only is this dented figment of our education policy ‘insidious’, it promotes BRAIN DRAIN !
May 15th, 2009 at 2:05 am
I do agree with you on governance issues of colleges. But the mentality among students and lecturers has to be changed as well.I did engineering. We had student union, student & lecturer groups based on caste and religion. one group didn’t like another. Though it was not on large scale, it created kind of disharmony among people and on due course, people who invested lots of time on these sectarian activities last their eyesight on their real targets.
It should start from home&schools.Students should have been taught to respect diversity. Innovation & creativity should be rewarded all the time irrespective of their background.
Forget about switching between courses. our general schooling system is designed to award people who memorize stuffs with out understanding the real meanings.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I feel strongly about some of the things you’ve talked about in this post.
The stupidity of our system that makes people make significant career decisions at the age of 18, with significant parental pressure that is hard to resist. Many anecdotes about this.
My friend’s relatives used to tell him that Mechanical Engineering is the ‘evergreen’ career option
How superfically decisions are made. After the dotcom bust there was a wholesale moving away from computer science to electronics as the first branch preference for students wanting to enter engineering. It struck me as completely out of touch with the reality (how many jobs does India have in electronics as opposed to software?). How come sensible messages were not coming through to the colleges and students from the legions of industry leaders and engineers? Where are the communication channels for people to communicate to students about making good career choices?
I am also not sure about one of the sentences above: about the main function of universities being
“equipping their students to function effectively, and productively, in the economy.”
Can our universities equip students also to understand the world around us, the nature of the political and socio-economic systems (and a la J.Krishnamurti, the nature of the human mind), and enable them to make meta-decisions about how they would engage with the economy and society? (I don’t see this as an elitist or unaffordable luxury for a poor country)
May 15th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Why does the west believe 2 million minutes of college are better spent in India and China and that their flexible education system have not been effective in producing the right kind skills?
May 16th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Sir,
You are right on your point. But shouldnt we analyse the root cause? The education system we are following is a macaulay education meant to produce only clerks for the british administration. However, after independance, the congress continued the same without any indigenisation.
And today, you are complaining that our education system is in such a mess. But shouldnt we fix the people who are responsible to do this, but failed.
The congress had been in power for 50 years, and it is they who should have done. But still now they havent ever thought of that. Similarly, the congress has been responsible for collapsing our economy with their socialists policies.
But no one is here to identify the root cause..
May 17th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I totally agree. I am very good at computer so doing a computer engineering made a very good sense to me. I have never regretted that decision.
But, as the time pass I developed an avid interest in space science.
Unfortunately there is no way in Indian education system I can merge these 2 fields now.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Good topic for some interesting future posts. I remember reading the book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” in the part where the writer goes to Brazil to teach science to students, he was surprised to know how students who were able to solve theoretical easily , could not relate to practical scenarios related to it. India’s education system is similar and so the products.
More than anything, in my mind we should encourage freedom of thoughts in schools , colleges add univ . Keeping govt. controls minimum should also yield good results though I am not sure as pvt. univ are as bad without any govt controls.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
@idontspam
Why west believes what it does is not the point here. Indian students are far more capable of what they are doing right now, and they deserve a better education system. A system which is flexible and allows more lateral growth. And you have to see why indians and chinese do so well when they go and study in the US, clearly their education system is capable of producing good students.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I do agree with you about the lack of giving an option to the student to choose their fav course. It would have been better if the course can be decided on their second year. But there are also some courses in B.E. which includes industrial training as a part of curriculum making the students learn it practically also. Sad thing is that only one college offers this. Innovation has to be their in the courses offered also and in their curriculum’s.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Dear Mr.Nandan,
First of all let me take this as an oppurtunity to congragulate you for being appointed for the prestigious Unique Idenfication Number project. Mr. Nandan! You wrote in length in this post of yours about the rigidity in Indian Colleges and about the concept of cross disciplining. These points are very much interesting. However, Mr.Nandan!!! This post makes me complain about the most worrysome recruitment policy of INFOSYS. The elibility criteria for most of your company’s jobs are higher percentage of marks throughout the applicant’s career. See! You people are still in the old orthodox way of thought of “More marks means More intelligent”. Do throw some light on the concept of assessment of intelligence only the basis of marks in academics. Please think about the aspect of amending the eligibility criteria for applying to INFOSYS jobs…
I was surprised to hear from you about the rigidity in Indian Academic system when I always wonder about the rigid and strange eligibility criteria for recruitment in INFY.
Cheers,
Prasanna Rayaprolu