What I think of Education in India...

First let me take you thru the India education system...

It all starts with the birth of the child. The parents want him to become a doctor and they even get him toy stethoscopes, toy doll's to operate on etc... The grand parents want him to become an engineer. They get him a set of lego toys... the uncle wants him to become a chartered accountant, and he gets the boy toy's with numbers on them. The other uncle wants him to become a business man like him, and so gets him monopoly (Also Called Business)...

By the age of 3 the Kid is in pre-school learning how to read and write. And by the age of 5 the kid is in Primary school learning to add and subtract. The parents have already booked the kid for tuition classes, so that the kid really learns what he is being thought. They have a fancy dress competition at the school - the parents sent him dressed as a doctor...

Every instance the parents and relatives get - they make sure the child knows what they want him to become.

After the child is out of 10th standard - now is the time to make a decision on what to branch off to in terms of carrier - you set the foundation. Here also the child has no respite from the social pressure of taking a science stream...

This is only one part of it... there are now the jealous neighbors, the teachers who did not get any other job so came to get experience on their CV, the management that is out to make money, the syllabus to make sure you are one step behind everybody, The Education Board - the grandpa's and grannies from the previous generation.

Talking about the neighbors - these are the nice people that your mom and dad always refer to - who are always doing better than you in school. These are the people who make sure that their kid goes to a better college than yours...these are the nice people who come and borrow notes and books (Sometimes sugar and salt also) so that their son can study...They are exceptions though - once in a while you come across really nice neighbors.

Next comes the teachers - Well I don't mean to hurt anybody, but the generation of teachers that we have is the worst that I have seen. These are the rejects - the guys who go for numerous interviews and always get a smile and "we will get back to you" message. These are the product's of our beautiful education system - where there is more stress on the knowledge than the application of the knowledge, and this is exactly what they teach their students. They are only bothered about the result's of the exams - so that they can claim that they had cent percent result in their classes on their CV's. These are the guy's who claim on their CV's that they have helped numerous students with their projects - but have hardly done one themselves. These are the guy's who hardly entertain questions from the students and give them big book's as reference book's. The worst part is that they hardly ever try... and all these combined with bad communication skill... well I better not comment. (I had written an article in my college days - "Teachers Duck! you are under fire" - about the quality of our teachers. Apparently one of the teachers went and complained to the principal that I had called the teachers duck's, I should have called them pussies...) Again there are exceptions - there will be those teachers who will go through the whole lesson again and again just be one student in the class did not understand something (and we would have to ask him to shut up the next time he had a doubt - because we were eager to move to the next lesson). But these teachers are hard to come across. Maybe 2 or 3 teachers in your whole educational life.

The Management - what do I say about them... Well like any other management they are out to make the most of it... in terms of Quantity and Quality. I should say that more stress is laid on the quantity. Look at any of the adverts in the media - they talk of cent percent result - on campus interview... all sort's of thing's that put their institution in the forefront. Lust like any other company out there trying to market a product or service. Are we really looking at cent percent result, are we really looking at the job's in the campus interview. If we are looking at these thing's then I am afraid that we are along the wrong way. You need not get educated, or study in such a costly college to get a job. To get a job - all you need to do is find one - there are plenty out there. We are all falling for this beautiful marketing campaign.

The syllabus this is something I hated from Day 1 in my college - None of the colleges in India seem to offer a good syllabus (I am in the computer field - that might be one of the reasons). The only one that got close to my expectations was Loyola College, in Chennai. I can understand the concern of the committee that we should have a good foundation - that does not mean that we should spent all our educational years learning something that we will never be able to apply! We need to learn some of those things - But then we must spend more time learning what can be applied in today's world and be translated into the future. Unfortunately this is not the case...

next in the firing line is the bureaucrats and politicians. The politicians like to play with the future - unfortunately they don't somehow seem to know that it is our future that they are playing with. They make big-big announcements to be spent in the name of education - only new classrooms are being made - nothing is being done about improving the quality of the education given in those classrooms. And the bureaucrats - the rat's behind the politicians. The only thing they are interested is the chairs they sit in. And to get their term extended on special projects and as committee head's. It is very unfortunate of them as they are the one's stuck between the Politicians promise of development and delivery...

Well in the end the product of the Indian education is a young brain washed person - who is not sure what he is supposed to do in life (cause he does not know anything other than Doctor and Engineer) who is narrow minded, whose creativity has been replaced by tough drilling, who is more interested in the money factor of education that education (read it as enlightenment) itself.

This is one reason why in India you don't find many research and development companies. This is the reason why in India you don't find any Major production houses like China (every body wants a white collar job).

If only India had used it's human resource in a better way - India would have overtaken China twenty years ago, and not in the next twenty years. If only India had used the potential of its Human Resource to its fullest - we would not be talking about this at all...