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!

My cousin who is learning ‘Ethics’ in her B.Tech degree had a different view point about killing rats / mice to test new medicines for the sake of humans.  As per her, it is unethical to kill such creatures for our sake.

During the discussion over phone I told her that even though it is legal to do research in other developed countries after getting a degree from a government institute, it is unethical to do so because the degree was almost given free of cost by the government using the tax-payers money and the student is obliged to return some favor to the tax payer (not through money, but through Intellectual Property to the country).

Her argument was that the country doesn’t have proper infrastructure to support research scholars and only developed countries will allow such scholars to do research easily.  Here she had to save even a pencil in the lab.  If that is the case, she was wondering what her focus would be on – research or pencil?

I gave her an example:  “Assume that your father has an IT Research company which trains people for 3 months getting only 10% of the training fees from the student and paying remaining 90% from it’s pocket. Also there is another IT Research company which does similar training but charging 100% of the fee from the student.

After getting 3 months training from your father’s company, if a trainee joins the other rich IT Research company citing the reason that it has more facilities to do research, they pay well, here in your company they have a limit for email storage and there they get unlimited email storage (whether I’ll worry about my research or email storage?), etc, what would you say?”

She told that she had exams the next day and she had to prepare.  Did I hurt her?  Because after getting her degree from a number one government college, she is planning to do research in a developed country.

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