Some thoughts on state of affairs in education in India today : First of all, education is the foundation of any society and the nation. Unfortunately in India, successive governments have really failed our nation in this important area of education. The objective of education should be to develop the competencies in students so that they are able to pursue the careers of their passion and in the process, provide happy life to their families and contribute to our nation. However, what is actually happening is that while students coming out of the large majority of educational institutions do have the qualifications but they do not have the competencies. Therefore, while on the one hand the corporate world and the organisations are not able to get the manpower they need but on the other hand, there is serious problem of employability. It is absolutely wrong to say that unemployment is rising in our country but the fact is that unemployability is rising in India. The problem starts with schools. While a large majority of government schools have become the parking place for those teachers recommended by the petty politicians who monthly collect the salaries with false attendance but do not teach. Therefore, given a choice, even a peon does not want to send his children to a government school to teach. On the other hand, a large majority of private schools are in the business of education with profit as the bottom-line, charging high fees and many even capitation fees or donations. Higher education - less said the better. A large number of government universities are a big scam since appointments of faculty members and even Vice Chancellors are done by taking huge bribes. These positions are highly lucrative now, after the pay scale of 6th Pay Commission were implemented. There is everything in these universities except education. There is now increasing number of private universities which have come into existence again mostly by paying bribes of few crores of rupees each. In many of these you can get the desired degrees just by paying the fees and sitting at home. The biggest racket in this is Ph.Ds since now AICTE, UGC, etc. all require faculty members to be Ph.Ds. All the regulatory agencies for education in India - CBSE, AICTE, NCTE, UGC, MCI, etc. have been mostly headed by highly arrogant, incompetent, unprofessional and corrupt persons during the last around two decades, whose only qualification has been rent-seeking. This requires immediate attention and action by the government to replace them with persons of competence, vision, ethics and integrity. As regards IITs & IIMs, all of them now have a serious problem of getting competent faculty. Faculty is the foundation of any educational institution. They are forced to recruit mediocre faculty and therefore, in the process, many of the new IITs and IIMs are also slowly but surely shaping up as mediocre institutions. Coaching is another menace. Increasing number of students passing out from IITs are good at cracking JEE but they are not good engineers. Similarly, many students coming out of IIMs are good at cracking CAT but they are not good managers. Anyone really good who truly wishes to set up top quality educational institution is frowned upon, thwarted and throttled since he has not budgeted for bribes in his calculations for fees. Huge amount has been collected by the government over the last decade in the name of education cess. God only knows where and how this large fund is being used or abused or misused. Let us all sincerely hope, pray and wish that the new HRD Minister Mrs. Smriti Irani is able to bring out education from this chaotic mess it has got into, specially during the last decade.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 08:02:30 +0000
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