With the new reforms in Indian Education System, India is about to witness an increased number of Universities.  In fact, almost all the colleges may be ‘renamed’ as ‘University’ in the next 10 years.

Once there were only few Universities in India and people literally fought for a ’seat’ for professional courses.  Soon, people from Middle-class and Upper-middle class won’t talk about ‘merit’ because they will be carried away by the ‘New Universities’ which may offer some attractive courses at a huge cost (which these people may arrange for some educational loan and repay after they get placed in a good company).

What these “new educational reforms” have failed to do is that they never made “education” as a thing for “knowledge”.  Also they never made a person “learn naturally” but just memorize and reproduce in the exams.

I’m just waiting for the day when:

1. A student learns a course out of his/her own interest.

2. A learning atmosphere prevails in the classroom (similar to The Physics Society classroom conducted by Prof. Ananthan)

3. Job & Education are de-linked from each other.

4. Talented person can shine in his/her field of interest.

5. The current “memorize & reproduce” exam pattern is changed and replaced by “understand and write” exam pattern.

The rise of Universities in India may help me achieve these things listed above or it may become ‘yet-another-business’.

While I was doing my graduation, I was a member of an youth association in my locality called “Ever Yours” where we used to conduct FREE classes for 10th, 11th and 12th students on all Sudays .  We also used to conduct yearly event with various competitions for the school students in and around our locality.

While I was ‘for reservation’ system in my country (though it was personally affecting me negatively in my education), the President of that association was against reservation system.  We had several debates about this and we never withdrew from our stand.

When I had enough experience in the organization, I was allowed to participate in the ‘Prize list decision meeting’ for the annual competitions where very few senior members took part.  In that, I found that many students from the same school used to score very high marks in all the competitions.  But while deciding the prizes, first prize went to that school student and second & third prizes went to other school students (who scored poor marks).  When asked about the logic behind the prize list, the President told me, ” Viru, if I give prizes to all the students from the same school, then from next year there won’t be any participation from other schools.  Also this prize will encourage students from those schools which doesn’t have similar environment as that of the ‘top performing school’.  We need to encourage those students to participate by giving some prize.”.

I understood his logic and accepted it.  It helped me easily explain my stand on ‘need for reservation system’.  But he was not willing to accept my logic (though he understood it).

Today, I attended the 7th session of Knowledge Community Chennai (#KCC7). For updates about that, please check Twitter

In this, I’m going to discuss about the participation for such sessions (and not about the session itself).

Today we had around 34 participants. The Wipro Office in Chennai was kind enough to provide us a 250 seater auditorium for conducting this event. Last time, HCL Technologies provided the venue and the strength was around 50.

Why is that the strength is so low for such KM sessions?  Aren’t people interested to gain knowledge from various sources?  Or is it that the people believe that they could gain knowledge from Internet and newspapers?

My understanding is that people are reluctant to ‘learn’.  They are interested in going home as soon as possible after completing their ‘regular’ work at office.  They don’t want to spend some extra time (even once in a month) to gain some knowledge and network with ‘real’ people.

When the atmosphere changes in the corporate world where people seek knowledge from various sources, the progress will be tremendous.   The root cause for the existing atmosphere in every institution/firm is, I believe, the ‘Education System’ of the country and nothing else.  If the education system had made the students to seek knowledge, it would have continued in corporate world also.  But it just helped the students to get a degree which was used by the corporate world as a ‘qualification’ for entry into their firm.  “As you sow, so shall you reap.”  Isn’t it?

My advance apologies for two reasons: (1) This article is also going to be more than one page and (2) I may hurt few Graduates from India’s premier institutes.

1. Why do we need a University?

I had an interesting discussion with my Prof. Ananthan about the need for a degree.

If you take any famous contributor to Science or Business, they would be mostly a school dropout or at least did not get any degree from any University. E.g. Ramanujam, Einstein, Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.) etc.

Once it was thought that Universities produced Educated Persons.  But, with the latest technological advances, a person may get education without any University.  In fact, the syllabus in many Universities are so old that a student has to learn from private institutes or in a job – to cope up with the latest technology.

Today a person need not get a degree to do a job.  If you take my company M/s HomePlanGuru.com for example, I never insist for any degree.  All I want is people with good analytical skills & attitude.

2. Why there are so many “Deemed Universities” in our country now?

This is my belief:

a) Deemed Universities (DUs) can make lot of money since they can specify the number of seats in each course.

b) Education is looked at as a business today by both the Institutes and Students.  Most of the students join a course not out of passion but out of compulsion to get a high paying job.  These DUs find the gap between “Supply-Demand” and fulfill the  need of these students.

c) DUs can ‘produce’ more ‘qualified’ students since they set the exam questions and their own staff correct the answer sheets. [For external Examiners, they give a 'bonous' amount for paper valuation].

3. What is the status of “Government Universities”?

This is my understanding:

a) Government Universities (GUs) are worse than DUs because they have very old syllabus and pathetic examination system [a system that tests the memorizing capacity of students rather than their knowledge in the subject].

b) Many Government and Government aided institutes lack  basic infrastructure but is still famous not because of their infrastructure or staff, but because of the students who join there.  [Only 'Creamy layer' of the students join these institutes since the fees is very less and the institutes already have an established name - which helps them in placement].

c) Teaching and Non-teaching staff in GUs are pathetic. If you conduct an exam for all the teaching staff in their own subjects, more than 50% of the staff will score less than 50% marks in their own subjects.

d) Mostly, those who didn’t get any good private jobs stick to teaching in Govt institutes.  Or they may get excellent commission from the vendors who supply lab materials and other items to the institutes. [One of my friend in Bengaluru told me that he had to pay 20% of his billed amount as commission to the HOD of a department in a Govt Institute for supplying lab items.  This amount will be more than what a CEO of a private company may get].

4. Why are students from such Government Universities not complaining about the quality of their degree/Institute?

Come on! If I say that I got a degree from such a Government Institute, would anyone give me a job or at least respect my degree?  Why should I open my mouth and tell the truth?

5. Conclusion:

As long as companies look for a ‘degree’ for employment, both DUs and GUs will produce ‘low quality Graduates’ as they do now.  If employment is de-linked from ‘degree’, all ‘Doomed’ Universities will die naturally.  Also, institutes like ICA (Chartered Accountants) must inspire other Universities to produce graduates purely based on merit [you should ask a CA student how difficult it is to pass the exam].   I’m waiting for that day to come!

In this article below, Prof. R Ananthan, Founder of The Physics Society, reveals the reason for him to start the society by honestly analyzing the present Education System.

The need to start “The Physics Society”

A question that arises quite naturally is the need for this kind of a Society. Aren’t there many colleges of repute in the city? Aren’t there many centers of research in the city? What new has the Society got to offer?

These questions surely require an honest response. But one must understand that an honest response may sometimes, more often than not, be a bitter pill to swallow. And this is one of the more often kind.

The Physics Society does not believe in mincing of words while expressing its views. A few of the observations and thoughts on the present-day education system in our country are presented below:

1. It is a known fact that our Educational System is purely examination-oriented. There is nothing wrong in getting trained for an examination, but unfortunately, it turns out that our examination system has been established in such a way that students find it extremely easy to pass creditably, even without understanding concepts! This statement is bound to bring about different, mostly opposing, opinions. But the Society remains convinced, after much thought and after- thought that such an examination does not foster creativity in our students.

2. In a highly memory-based examination system, learning, unfortunately, is not given the required priority. The primary focus is on obtaining the maximum securable marks, degrees and medals. Moreover, education has become a means of livelihood. As a result, students read because they ‘have to’ and not because they ‘want to’. The joy of learning is naturally lost!

3. Such an unsound examination system has serious repercussions for the society, for it is this very same system that delivers our teachers. It is a known fact that quality teachers are rare finds, these days.

4. Another important aspect is that it is only ‘coaching’ that is expected out of those few good teachers and not ‘teaching’. All that is required from a teacher is a way to train the students ‘successfully’ pass examinations with ‘flying colors’.

For those who continue to insist that all is well with this system, a few questions await their answers.

Every year, we produce lakhs of graduates and post-graduates and, at least a few thousand doctorates. Then why, in 58 years of independent India, have we not produced a Nobel Laureate? Almost every year we see an American or a German or a Japanese wins the Nobel Prize, but not a single Indian has made it so far. Well, we are a nation more bothered about winning an Oscar for a film rather than the Nobel. Not that it is wrong to bother about winning the Oscar, but is it not more important to be bothered about winning the Nobel Prize? One is reminded of a senior Cabinet Minister consoling a filmmaker for having lost out on the Oscar. What about our scientists? Well, scientists don’t get votes!

Why is there a mad rush for professional courses, while there are very few takers for pure sciences and humanities? Why does there exist such hype over Engineering and Medical admissions, while not many seem to bother about arts and sciences. In fact, a few colleges have even stopped offering courses in the pure sciences. Is it that arts and sciences are, in any way, inferior?

Why do talented youngsters not take up the teaching profession, if it is as ‘noble’ as it is claimed to be? One obvious reason is the discouraging pay scale that is dwarfed by those offered by software giants.

This article is from the website: http://www.physicssociety.com/?page_id=2