Indian Education System

wasu · Post by **wasu** » 12 Apr 2011 12:59

There is hope. Read this recent article.

Making 500 million people employable

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/i ... 13909.html

India faces a curious dilemma. In the next two decades, it will add over 200 million people to its working age - between 18 to 60 years - population. Much more than any other country in the world. Even China, seen as the mother lode of the global economy this century, will see its workforce shrink by about 100 million by 2030.

For India, more working people means more income. More income means a more prosperous nation. For a country that will become a middle income nation - per capita annual wages of $1,200, translating into Rs 4,500 a month - by the end of 2010/11 after more than a century of penury, its young population presents a never-before opportunity for transition.

That is, if it can get its people readied for work. If it can train its young to man global standard factories. If it can get its young to be smart accountants. If it can turn its young into efficient yet friendly front office staff at super markets. If it can have its young tell the difference between a dovetail joint and a lap joint in a well-crafted wooden table. If it can produce enough nurses and doctors to charm and heal the world's increasing old. If it can...

If you are among those sceptical of India's capacity to do so, Business Today has news for you. There are the beginnings of a trend of India starting to train its people on a scale large enough to alter the nation's future. Dozens of training companies with ambitions of training millions in engineering, construction, manufacturing, retailing, insurance, banking services including microfinance, accountancy, hospitality, health care and other vocations are sprouting up around India.

....

joshvajohn · Post by **joshvajohn** » 14 Apr 2011 13:21

'India has exam system, not education system'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 977172.cms

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 18 May 2011 09:27

^^^ CNRR is right. We need focus on excellence -- raising some institutions to world class will have serious consequences.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 18 May 2011 09:39

GuruPrabhu wrote:^^^ CNRR is right. We need focus on excellence -- raising some institutions to world class will have serious consequences.

The Indian system, flaws and all, still manages to churn out the best equipped individuals that can compete anywhere in the world...And if you look across all of Asia - China, Korea, Singapore - the system is pretty similar (English proficiency is the big difference, and advantage though for India)...

Some years back, we had an MDP condcted by IIM, Cal in my company...The prof conducting the course was also heading up the insti's (then) new PGPX programme (a master's programme for experienced professionals)...A few colleagues with no masters (or "less prestigious" masters) enquired about the admission criteria - the prof said that the median GMAT score required for admission was 715-720, which incidentally was at par/higher than the score required for admission to the regular masters programme @ MIT/Harvard etc...And this was "just" a PGPX programme, not the flagship regular masters programme that most people aspire for...

Competition across Asia will only increase, I would rather have my kids be ready for the gruelling tests than be used to the "IB style, holistic" (read: less rigorous) regime...

What is really needed in higher education is to let the IITs and IIMs completely "free"...They are already substantially so, the need is to let them completely be on their own..The govt should seed fund an endowment, and then just get out of it completely..Concentrate on the "pipeline", ie, primary/secondary education and up the game there..

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 May 2011 11:11

somnath wrote:
GuruPrabhu wrote:^^^ CNRR is right. We need focus on excellence -- raising some institutions to world class will have serious consequences.
The Indian system, flaws and all, still manages to churn out the best equipped individuals that can compete anywhere in the world...And if you look across all of Asia - China, Korea, Singapore - the system is pretty similar (English proficiency is the big difference, and advantage though for India)...

But what is the burn/rejection rate? Right now in higher education (college, Masters, Pee-chaddi etc) what we have is a huge gap between the quality of education that the best-of-the-best get and what the average fellas get. That gap needs to be reduced otherwise we will keep producing only a small pool of "best equipped individuals". Simply quality is not everything, ensuring some quantity of quality also counts. Say what one might about massa and their piss poor education system (though that is mostly issues at the school level), they have managed to tackle this problem at the college/university level - in massa one doesn't need to get into Yum-Eye-Tea, Stan madrassa or Hairbird to do something groundbreaking or become well equipped to be amongst the best. India must strive for that becoz in the end a handful of elite intellects (no matter how smart or productive) cannot bring about massive or consistent progress.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 18 May 2011 13:00

^^I agree..the chalenge is to bring up the standards of the "median"...And outside of the IIXs, that would need massive public funding..The point was about the "approach" rather than anything else...

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 18 May 2011 20:56

somnath wrote:The Indian system, flaws and all, still manages to churn out the best equipped individuals that can compete anywhere in the world...

Yes, the individuals compete well but not the institutions (in terms of their innovative research output).

This is the entire problem. Despite having a world-class student body, the research output is not world-class. China is catching up, especially in materials research. There is no reason that India should not be at the top.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 19 May 2011 00:22

There was a High-Tc research lab in a southern univ where boatloads of fresh and experienced researchers from PRC was housed on short and long term tenure to do materials research. It was a virtual paper publishing center run by a feudal lord from the same region the slaves were hired. That is an extreme model, but not very different from how research and applied science functions in most of massa centers of excellence. This point is lost upon most Indian institutions. In search of the infrequent tails of a distribution, they lose sight of the meat of the population. It results in no one to do the actual work and led by the members of the brilliant tail. All the examination based system and filters are in search of this elusive tail. Even when the tail is found and installed with a halo, there are no next able men to do the chores for the tail to shine in their glory. Results are for all to see.

Bose babu has hit on the right phrase.

Simply quality is not everything, ensuring some quantity of quality also counts.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 19 May 2011 00:25

what now?

How do we fix that quant gap? Any thoughts?

Even in community colleges in massa, the amount of people passing through courses in the evenings is staggering.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 May 2011 01:30

Unlike GOTUS which was able to use WWII and post-WWII as a stimulus to bring about this change, in India it has to be the private industry and private institutions which have to bring about the change. And a large reason for lack of research in our educational institutions is the lack of research in our industrial institutions - where is the motivation and the incentive to do ground breaking research? If our industries are happy with simply assembling Russkie aircraft and cashing in on the call center boom instead of designing, developing and marketing their own branded products, how will they have R&D work to hand out to our educational institutions? Doing ivory tower research can only go so far. One major reason why massa universities gained such competence in doing research with high impact in terms of applications is due to close collaboration with industry. Otherwise there wont be a "push" and urgency (some say, the constant pumping in of "adrenaline") to get results quickly or to go the extra mile within a short period of time to exceed the originally planned expectations. Industry provides that driving force which keeps academia (at least in Injin-eering) in shape otherwise it will revert back to "chal raha hai, chalega, chalta hai" style of research where time is of no consequence and applications of a technology are a mere after-thought.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 19 May 2011 06:13

GuruPrabhu wrote:Yes, the individuals compete well but not the institutions (in terms of their innovative research output).

Raja Bose wrote:And a large reason for lack of research in our educational institutions is the lack of research in our industrial institutions - where is the motivation and the incentive to do ground breaking research

The issue about "research output" is structural and fundamental...

At the core, it was about the direction that "R&D" took right after independence..JLN and the science bureaucracy of the time thought that the best way forward would be to set up dedicated R&D monoliths like CSIR, rather than develop the university system...So all well-funded (relatively speaking) areas of R&D got done out of such instituions - CSIR, Pusa Institute, of course ISRO and BARC/DAE and later DRDO...The universities languished..A lot of people like SN Bose had said that this is a disastrous aproach..

Over time, unofrtunately their prognosis came truer than the early hopes...While there are some bright spots, expecially in ISRO and BARC, most of the so-called "labs" degenrated into large bureaucracies with a standing principle (as Dr Mashelkar put it once) of "publish or perish"! So industry interaction, applied research etc suffered...And the universities, that could have been exciting incubators of new ideas, a la in the US, simply never had the resrouces..Not even the "elite" ones like the IIXs..

there are two different issues here..One, quality of research..And two, median quality of teaching output below the IIXs...the solutions IMO are different...

The former will happen once the IIXs (and a few others) are set out free to achieve their destinies - let them collaborate with whoever, let them tie-up with whoever, let them pay howsoever much to attract profs...Quality research will follow...

The latter is a question again of autonomy (to the existing institutions), and massively upgraded level of public funding...

there are no silver bullet solutions, but autonomy and funding are a good start...

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 May 2011 07:32

^^^That alone does not solve one of the fundamental issues - which is the motivation to do cutting edge applied research. That has to come from industry. Massa's military-industrial complex has been largely responsible for that in their own country.

Param · Post by **Param** » 19 May 2011 07:51

Raja Bose is spot on. R&D in Uni's need to be backed with goals, which is only fueled by motivation. This has to come from the industries. This is the key. They have to aim higher with the insurance there is the talent pool to back them up.

Industries need to go finds interns from colleges, employ them at low pay while giving them hands on work they give their full time employees. They need to push themselves forward through which the practical research at colleges will follow. At least this is the system at my Uni here in USA. If you're a bio medical student, by the time you're done with undergrad you've already worked for 12 months with a pharma company through co-op programs.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 19 May 2011 08:00

Raja Bose wrote:^^^That alone does not solve one of the fundamental issues - which is the motivation to do cutting edge applied research. That has to come from industry. Massa's military-industrial complex has been largely responsible for that in their own country.

Across countries, R&D spends are overwhelmingly public, and within that primarily in MIC (and pharma, in the case of US)...

the situation's not different in India - R&D spends are overwhelmingly concentrated in Defence/Space/Atomic energy - India's version of MIC..the issue is not enough of the spends is happening in the unis..Its a vicious cycle - unis dont have the (physical and intellectual) infrastructure to do the research, hence delivery agencies like DRDO/HAL/ISRO/BARC are not enthused to entrust them with a lot of cutting edge work...And because there is no cutting edge work, the best minds interested in the area migrate out, and there is no money to invest in the infra...

To cut through this cycle, funding is required - to set up the physical and intellectual infra...For the IIXs, full autonomy will enable them generate that funding..For the rest, public funding will be required..That will encourage DRDO to entrust more R&D on (say) AMCA to the IIXs...

Private funding will follow public funding - it always does..

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 May 2011 08:06

Comparison with Massa is fine and dandy but such a comparison unfortunately does not take the whole 'big picture' into the account. The whole Industry-Uty collaboration in Massa is but a small cog in the giant wheel that drives Massa's economy. India's model is different here unlike the GOTUS , GoI is not just an enabler but the sole 'actor' in question and that is why most of our R&D is only limited to the handful of the premier institutions setup by the government decades ago.

Even an energizer bunny like me who is otherwise first to jump onto the bandwagon of 'bash the Gobmint' believes that as compared to the other sectors at least in the education scene the GoI has done a commendable job, obviously ‘ye dil mange more’ but I would rather have the GoI simply go down a brute force route and pump in more money into elementary education. Strong fundamentals of the economy and gradual departure from the socialist policies will take care of the Industrial and eventually the R&D scene in India as far as private sector is concerned , reforms in the higher education and Uty will then follow.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 19 May 2011 08:56

Not sure if people have seen this (or I might have posted this before) but an organisation called Pratham does outstanding work on primary education in India...Its best (most visible) output is the ASER (Annual Status on Education Report) report...they do it for rural areas only - but its fantastic..

http://images2.asercentre.org/aserrepor ... Report.pdf

The stated objective is to see how increased outlays (and legislations like RTE) are impacting outcomes on the ground..Especially w.r.t the education cess imposed by UPAI in 2006 - so its a comparative "before after" analysis...

Broadly conclusions are:
1. The higher outlays have made a difference to coverage - enrollment ratios have gone up massively, hearteningly for the vulnerable groups (girls) as well..
2. Quality of education is still a challenge - there is no discernible difference in that outcome..
3. Quality of infrastructure (now objectively defined under RTE Act) is abysmal - <5% of schools score 7 out of the 7 factors defined..
4. Surprisingly though, learning outcomes seem to not show much correlation to infrastructure quality!

Good stuff for those interested...

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 May 2011 10:31

Some of my friends have quit decent jobs and joined Teach For India; it's a nice organization which makes it easier for people who want to contribute towards the cause of Child education to get started without wasting too much time procrastinating.
http://www.teachforindia.org

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 19 May 2011 11:26

the fact that none of the govt funded science labs display any interest in recruiting lateral hires from industry is a bit strange. in sher khan I believe even r&d labs staffed top to bottom with Phds have a good cadre of engineers and technicians to get the more practical aspects done and actually produce something tangible rather than great thoughts and papers. the salary disparity kills that thought here.

here you either get in fresh out of college or be invited back via reputation/contacts IFF you are some world famous Phd / prof guru looking for a few yrs of pre/post retirement work in india.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 May 2011 11:37

negi wrote:India's model is different here unlike the GOTUS , GoI is not just an enabler but the sole 'actor' in question and that is why most of our R&D is only limited to the handful of the premier institutions setup by the government decades ago.

Exactly - this has to change. GoI cannot be mai-baap for everything. They have done a tremendous job given the resources and circumstance but on absolute scale, that is still not enough.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 19 May 2011 19:28

Singhaji, you are absolutely right. Lateral hires are the key to cross-fertilization of ideas. There is no great industry-univ collaboration even in Massa outside of engineering disciplines. The amount of free movement of intellectual resources across disciplines in massa is seen to be believed. People with even a PhD in physics doing things like research in medical sciences and instrumentation, earth sciences, electrical engineering, Biological oceanography, software engineering etc etc. I know of even a PhD in Computational Chemistry who later did a post-doc in Radio Astronomy and now does environmental sciences or someone after a physics PhD, did software engg for a few years and now is a medical doctor. Is that possible in India ?

Compare that with ISRO/BARC/CISR or even IITs. You get hired and drafted into their respective training schools are kept largely in a stove-pipe. They do not even regularly hire people with 10 yrs experience in a related but different field. Massa hires and uses the "failed" products from each stove pipe and give them opportunities in other fields whereas in India they are discarded forever out of the system and lost.

A lot has to do with how we have failed to use our human resources in a flexible way. We are too uptight in our categorization of things for life. With such an approach, no amount of Industry lead is going to make Indian R&D at even 10% of level that massa enjoys. It is the median and sufficient quantities of reasonable quality work that runs and feeds the massa wheels of R&D and by a large fraction it is mostly government sponsored. Industry money is applied to very niche areas and with a few exceptions are adaptations of govt sponsored research.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 21 May 2011 00:02

Bade wrote: Compare that with ISRO/BARC/CISR or even IITs. You get hired and drafted into their respective training schools are kept largely in a stove-pipe. They do not even regularly hire people with 10 yrs experience in a related but different field. Massa hires and uses the "failed" products from each stove pipe and give them opportunities in other fields whereas in India they are discarded forever out of the system and lost.

Bade-saar, IIRC, VSSC and CDAC at Trivandrum had a few wise old man that "came in from the cold"?

But I agree with you assessment of nearly top-notch people falling off the stove-pipe and moving into inanities of ITvity. As I mentioned above, one thing massa does really well is their support for continuing education system. That way, when a job trend vanishes, they can retool their skillset and move on to the next big thing. India has only private sector schools for that. A credit based system of independent courses, that add upto a degree amongst govt institutions of India would be awesome. And if you are a resident in a massa state for a year, the course fees (particularly in state universities and community colleges) are microscopical, compared to a TFTA university.

Infact my strong advice to any injun if going to be in massaland for more than a year, do not hesitate to explore the nearest community college for bargain basement courses to learn non-ITvity skill sets that you always wanted to - music (vocal, learning instruments etc have no age limit), art (different media, sculpting, puppetry, ceramics, whatever!), visual (all phases of production of TV/Film/animation) etc are well taught in these small places within budget.

People can do what they want, especially only when they are ready and have the right mindset. I really wish our engineering and arts colleges can do that to help people with jobs. It increases incentive to open new avenues of industriousness

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 May 2011 01:08

While we can think of only harder and harder testing methods and nothing else to ensure quality

College physics: two-way engagement vs. one-way lectures

"As a psychologist, I'm ashamed that it is physicists who are leading this effort, and not learning scientists," admitted James W. Stigler, a UCLA psychology professor, to the New York Times. Here's the Science magazine abstract for the study in question, "Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class":

We compared the amounts of learning achieved using two different instructional approaches under controlled conditions. We measured the learning of a specific set of topics and objectives when taught by 3 hours of traditional lecture given by an experienced highly rated instructor and 3 hours of instruction given by a trained but inexperienced instructor using instruction based on research in cognitive psychology and physics education. The comparison was made between two large sections (N = 267 and N = 271) of an introductory undergraduate physics course. We found increased student attendance, higher engagement, and more than twice the learning in the section taught using research-based instruction.

The study has been reported and assessed in both the online Science magazine news article "A Better Way to Teach?" and in the New York Times piece "Less Talk, More Action: Improving Science Learning."

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/politics/ ... ---20.html

The research, appearing online . . . in Science, was conducted by a team at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, in Canada, led by physics Nobelist Carl Wieman. First at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and now at an eponymous science education initiative at UBC, Wieman has devoted the past decade to improving undergraduate science instruction, using methods that draw upon the latest research in cognitive science, neuroscience, and learning theory.

In this study, Wieman trained a postdoc, Louis Deslauriers, and a graduate student, Ellen Schelew, in an educational approach, called "deliberate practice," that asks students to think like scientists and puzzle out problems during class. For 1 week, Deslauriers and Schelew took over one section of an introductory physics course for engineering majors, which met three times for 1 hour. A tenured physics professor continued to teach another large section using the standard lecture format.

The results were dramatic: After the intervention, the students in the deliberate practice section did more than twice as well on a 12-question multiple-choice test of the material as did those in the control section. They were also more engaged—attendance rose by 20% in the experimental section, according to one measure of interest—and a post-study survey found that nearly all said they would have liked the entire 15-week course to have been taught in the more interactive manner.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 May 2011 01:15

Hnair, maybe in the old days they did. But not anymore. Look at even the advt for IIST recruitment. And also the age related cutoff, such arbitrary methods have no place in education or institutions of importance.

BTW, IIST is recruiting for Asst. Prof level for a large number of disciplines.

negi · Post by **negi** » 21 May 2011 01:16

Me thinks real reason for improved results is

http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~nanolab/

*See madamji (second from right).

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 21 May 2011 09:01

The improvement in learning via a more direct contact with the teacher is something that should find resonance in the Indic crowd. It is the age old Guru-Shishya parampara that has stood the test of time. There is no superior way to teach than to *really* talk to a student rather than lecture him.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 21 May 2011 12:23

Bade wrote:And also the age related cutoff, such arbitrary methods have no place in education or institutions of importance.

Agree, that age limit is some incredibly weak, anachronistic shyte for things like getting into senior babu-dom or academia!!

BTW, IIST is recruiting for Asst. Prof level for a large number of disciplines.

saar, you should be doing something about it, like SDhavan Chair types

GuruPrabhu wrote:The improvement in learning via a more direct contact with the teacher is something that should find resonance in the Indic crowd. It is the age old Guru-Shishya parampara that has stood the test of time. There is no superior way to teach than to *really* talk to a student rather than lecture him.

amen saar! this direct contact is huge. The number of times I failed after buying a DVD or a self-help book for even mundane things is way too many compared to getting the initiation from a teacher.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 May 2011 22:35

Hnair-saar, me not a bada abdul as handle suggests. I do small things to help out, though a very inefficient and frustrating process as one gets tied by rules and regulations at either place. With no pedigree and godfather I do not aspire for those high connections either. In India talent alone does not count for anything and more importantly got to do such moves at the right time. Other personal matters pre-occupied self, or that is my excuse. I also think me well past my sell date onlee.

But I do look forward to engaging such institutes if they open up during my retirement to desh.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 May 2011 11:14

Why would-be engineers end up as English majors

Mucho

about how Science/Engineering teachers are not "innovative" enuff to attract "talented" Amirkhan brats who instead become English majors. Someone needs to tell these brats that: (a) They have it way more cushy and better than 99.9999% of the world - if they don't believe that, let them come and study in the Indian education system for a year. To be honest, people who are considered Stanford-worthy in massa (barring the very top superstar talent) would be hard pressed to even get into a 3rd-tier college in India given the lack of quantity in good schools and the huge number of talented candidates. (b) The professional world is not a cushy place which will mollycoddle them and indulge them to show their "talent" - the real world is always swim-or-sink.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 23 May 2011 01:21

Engineering is a loser's field in the USA, because fields like financial engineering

offer better rewards. The field is reserved mostly for first and second generation immigrants who are looking for jobs with little risk.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 23 May 2011 04:19

vera_k wrote:Engineering is a loser's field in the USA, because fields like financial engineering offer better rewards. The field is reserved mostly for first and second generation immigrants who are looking for jobs with little risk.

I agree with the bold-faced part (not with the other part because immigrants can be risk-takers too, however, the consequences of losing a job for an H1 immigrant is deportation- a catastrophic risk that no American is required to take). It is a puzzle to me why politicians/president/public officials here keep saying that more students should do engineering etc. I wonder how they can say that with a straight face when they know that engineering is a lesser paid profession than many others. You can bet that not one of those politicians have an engineering degree.

The highest paying professions here are doctors/lawyers/bankers/marketing/management etc. Yes, finance has taken a downward turn but engineering has not become any more attractive. In that context, I respect the Americans who decide to do engineering because they could have *easily* gone to any of the other professions and done better. Engineering education is a struggle, by no means a cake-walk. They came to engineering because of the love of the field (same goes for people who chose science). What engineering does guarantee, even if not a 5-star salary, is a stable job scene. But I dont think that's what drives Americans' job choices. The number of applicants to engineering is not going to rise just because some politicians decide US needs more engineers and dub it as as a cool major. I think the demand will have to continue to be filled by immigrants to the extent it currently is.

A market-driven economy will remunerate a profession in proportion to the value it places on the said profession, and engineering is no exception to that rule.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 23 May 2011 08:24

SriKumar wrote:What engineering does guarantee, even if not a 5-star salary, is a stable job scene. But I dont think that's what drives Americans' job choices. The number of applicants to engineering is not going to rise just because some politicians decide US needs more engineers and dub it as as a cool major. I think the demand will have to continue to be filled by immigrants to the extent it currently is.

In massaland if you practice engineering for some time you usually become incredibly specialized. There is so much material in every little slice that it takes a lifetime of work to understand just that one slice. For instance I know an engineer who specializes in valves for caustic high temperature fluids. That's all he does, selecting, specing, and testing them.

What this means is that when the market shifts an incredible number of very highly specialized engineering folk are left suspended. They can't really jump professions and waste all that knowledge yet their job profile may no longer be necessary. This happens far far too often in massaland and Americans know it. Hence the reluctance to go into engineering and the preference for general/flexible types of employment.

I would never recommend for my children to go into engineering.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 24 May 2011 09:20

http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/24/stories ... 571600.htm
all because of nanna mujs, and the pindi network is nothing without these nannahs.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 May 2011 11:28

Saars, let us also not forget that there are worse things paisa-wise than Injin-eering namely, pure sciences and liberal arts otherwise SDREs in massa wouldn't have the highest average salary.

In the end what you get paid in monetary terms is a function of your job stress and initial capital investment+ragda - no job is a cakewalk, whether it is law, medicine, finance, management, injin-eering, pure sciences or non-sciences.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 24 May 2011 17:26

SaiK wrote:http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/24/stories ... 571600.htm
all because of nanna mujs, and the pindi network is nothing without these nannahs.

Jairam R seems to have kicked up a bit of a controversy with thsi remarks, with the BJP also climbing on the bandwagon of "blast JR" regime..Nevertheless, cant accuse him of being attention-seeking on this, 12-13 years ago he said the same thing to me in a brief conversation when he had come to my alma mater...He has a point on the research output, and also on the limtations of attracting good faculty in govt structure...

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 26 May 2011 00:29

What controversy? IITs and IIMs are not world class, but neither are the other shitholes that pass for edu instis in India. In fact they are all even worse, so much for bwaha in terms of MHRD allocation for higher ed in India. Big effing deal, life goes on. Let his party take some responsibility for the sorry state of affairs, no?! His own congress govt can do the iits a world of good by liquidating the MHRD's hold on iits via the iit act. We want autonomy, no diktats on what the payscales for hiring should be, no diktats on admission criteria, no diktats on where to set up instis, no diktats on a nascent P&T system, etc. Let GoI keep the cash they baksheesh to the iits and let us ve some autonomy. We have the ground situ wherein an IIT prof gets the sixth pay commission recommendation on his payscale implemented after ALL the workers of iits get their share. So much for expecting people to do world class shit with shit class life. Let the street-players command their salary and let the intellectual prostitution market decide who should get what. That will be anathema to his own party however

. After all, aint it all Nehru mama's family fiefdom?

In any case, he is dissing also on this man, a DAA from IITB no less:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/08/13/st ... 540400.htm

In reality, life is a three way street, the emergency lane is often ignored by people who have blinkers to see only the two ways that are obvious. For those like Jairam Ramesh, it is just one way, and that is the only way. He probably does nt know the fraction of alum recruitment in the last 30 years, in the last 10 years etc. Earlier, it used to be direct recruitment, now it is a sideways recruitment. In any case, if he wants to fix the shit, he can ask Kapil Sibal to swap environment with him. Its his party politics.

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 26 May 2011 05:39

Impressive achievement from AP again - Topper, 5 in top 10, and 25% overall.

IIT-JEE: A.P. boy bags all-India first rank
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyd ... 048905.ece

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 26 May 2011 05:40

^^Youngest IIT JEE topper apparently.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 26 May 2011 06:01

Stan_Savljevic wrote:What controversy? IITs and IIMs are not world class, but neither are the other shitholes that pass for edu instis in India. In fact they are all even worse, so much for bwaha in terms of MHRD allocation for higher ed in India. Big effing deal, life goes on. Let his party take some responsibility for the sorry state of affairs, no?! His own congress govt can do the iits a world of good by liquidating the MHRD's hold on iits via the iit act. We want autonomy, no diktats on what the payscales for hiring should be, no diktats on admission criteria, no diktats on where to set up instis, no diktats on a nascent P&T system, etc. Let GoI keep the cash they baksheesh to the iits and let us ve some autonomy. We have the ground situ wherein an IIT prof gets the sixth pay commission recommendation on his payscale implemented after ALL the workers of iits get their share. So much for expecting people to do world class shit with shit class life. Let the street-players command their salary and let the intellectual prostitution market decide who should get what. That will be anathema to his own party however . After all, aint it all Nehru mama's family fiefdom

It would be instructive to read what he said..Pretty much the same thing, ie, under GOI framework, it is difficult to attract and nurture "world class" faculty...

Regarding pay etc, while I am not sure when 6PC recos were implemented in the IIXs, what I do know for a fact is that profs in the IIX get paid considerably higher than profs anywhere else in India, with potential for the better ones to earn much more through consulting assignments or MDPs...But yet, when a full prof with 20 years in an IIM sees the fresher grad from his class joining a bank @ about 3 times his current salary, it cannot always havea salutary effect...

Many years back I had an opportunity to interact with JR - he was visiting my school on some programme (saw that famous Indo-Pak test in Chennai with him in the common room

)..He had similar views even then...And broadly, nothing incongruent to what most people, including alumni think in any case...

On the issue of autonomy, the IIXs actually have quite a broad swathe of it, barring on the issue of salaries...But successive govts, starting with NDA with MMJ, have found it politically expedient to rake up controversies around them...Kapil Sibal has the right ideas, and seems to be moving in the right direction...We also need to be careful - a recent report by a panel headed by V Krishnamurthy on IIM autonomy suggested, among other things, "stakes" that pvt individuals/corporates can buy in the governing councils by making monetary contributions...This is dangerous..

What is clear though is that without greater autonomy, IIXs cannot graduate up to bigger things, which is what JR is saying...

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 26 May 2011 11:47

But yet, when a full prof with 20 years in an IIM sees the fresher grad from his class joining a bank @ about 3 times his current salary, it cannot always havea salutary effect...

This is what is called half-baked bullshit without an understanding of why people take to academics. Quite some take to academics in the US because once you are past the tenure pipeline, its a bit chilled out unless you molest someone. But the case of a no-tenure system such as India is different. A good majority of the people take to academics because they think they like what they do. With that background, seeing one's student make 10x more cash than you do is not causing takleef, not nuff to make it the singular most object of attention.

The problem that you fail to realize is the lack of autonomy, which is characterized by running to the Administrative block for either a house allocation or a house move or applying for a grant with DRDO, or using your own grant money for travel, or getting every Btech or Mtech (forget MS and Phd) go through the hoops a la paperwork to get to graduate and announce seminars and have that internal and external committees decide right away, or start a new course, etc. Even TA allocation goes through the Dean, Acad. In short, unless you go through the shithole called Ad Block, which is an emblem and a symptom of the IIT Act, you wont know what autonomy really means. {In fact, I was at the Ad Block not too long back on some other errand, and not much has changed in the gazillion years since I moved from that blackhole.} Autonomy does not begin or end with getting a higher pay or being bracketed in a different payscale alone, autonomy means the whole gamut of things, learning to be self-sufficient to a good degree is where I will start. It is not like folks at IITs need that guiding to be self-sufficient, they just need the freedom.

Now, can your educated Minister of the Envt, IIT alum, Jairam Ramesh, recognize that? No, he cant. Because most people, esp politicians, love the control they have. Whether they are/were IIT alums is immaterial. The moment these folks become politicians, the argee gene evolves into a choothiya gene. Or rather the choothiya gene which was always there gets to be used in something other than streetsmarts like, for example, making money and becoming an elite with a rape attitude. The more power vested in them as Ministers and jagirdars, the more they feel manly and ballsy. The same applies to one Murli Manohar Joshi and his uncle.

On the issue of autonomy, the IIXs actually have quite a broad swathe of it, barring on the issue of salaries...But successive govts, starting with NDA with MMJ, have found it politically expedient to rake up controversies around them...

Please explain how the number of doomed universities increased from 20 in 2000 (1 in 1964) to 87 in 2009 and ~127 now somuchso that 44 had to be shafted because they did nt meet the UGC's own norms, which the UGC onlee had said has been met not so long back? I have seen doomed universities such as Sathyabama university, St Peters University, Vel tech etc and heard nuff stories over booze from people who have been on the accreditation committee to such bogus "universities". 90% of such universities will be from TN. How come Arjun Singh maharaj not take responsibility for this gross shittiness in the system? I did nt even get started with the quota system that Arjun maharaj and VP Singh instituted on India what with the covered bracket climbing past 80% in some states such as TN. Even Supreme Court maharaj cant question this bakwaas because they are right there in that part of the Constitution that cannot be challenged (Ninth schedule). Who was responsible for this? Nehru mama, of course. Was nt he the guy who wanted to bulldoze land ceiling reforms and could nt do this without a Ninth schedule? I know you will use giggle aunty very well, so let me save you a couple of minutes:

The first Constitutional amendment, piloted by Nehru in 1951, effected far-reaching changes in diverse areas. First, it imposed "reasonable restrictions" on the freedom of speech and expression and the freedom to practice any profession or carry on any occupation, trade or business. Second, overturning a judicial verdict against reservations, it introduced a clause clarifying that any special provision that the state might make for the educational, social or economic advancement of any backward class could not be challenged on the ground of being discriminatory. {That is, government is god and even if I am Nakkeeran, I am stuck.}

Given the priority then of dismantling the zamindari system, the most politically sensitive aspect of the first Constitutional amendment was the introduction of the Ninth Schedule to insulate agrarian reforms from legal challenge. The Ninth Schedule served very well as a shield to the various land reforms laws passed by states in the first three decades after Independence.

So either every MHRD and every politician has been an asshole in his own regard or MMJ is the first asshole on the block. The only difference basically is what the asshole calls others as, and what he brands himself or herself as. Now you get to move around in circles and expose what kinda spoon you are. But, of course, my entropy on this matter is zero.

somnath wrote: It would be instructive to read what he said..

You keep reading what he has to say. In contrast to you hearing Jairam Ramesh over a chai biskoth session and waxing over his logic, I grew up in IITM and still touch base with nuff people there to know what is right about some of these places and what is wrong. In fact, if you used your giggle aunty tricks at this very dhaaga, somewhere back you will find a loooong post by me on what ails IITs. IOW, choose the tree to bark at and that tree aint me.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 26 May 2011 12:01

Stan_Savljevic wrote:In contrast to you hearing Jairam Ramesh over a chai biskoth session and waxing over his logic, I grew up in IITM and still touch base with nuff people there to know what is right about some of these places and what is wrong. In fact, if you used your giggle aunty tricks at this very dhaaga, somewhere back you will find a loooong post by me on what ails IITs

You make lots of pretentious assumptions - you arent the only chap here from IIX, there are others who have lived and breathed that experience and recruit from these places every year, and hence dont have to google for either info or experience..(So cut out the pretentions, no use - only leads you to making eggregious statements like "ciritcising a court judgement is illegal in India")...

And yes, if you had gotten rid of your innate rudenss, you would realise that what I said was not much different from wat you did in broad approach (or for that matter what JR said) - but then, they dont teach graces at IITM, its a factor of upbringing...