Indian Education System

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 26 Dec 2014 09:22

matrimc wrote:Today one person cannot know even what is all the research being done in the world in her own area (make it as narrow as you want) leave alone reading and understanding all the research.

Yup! And if one does not keep up with the times one turns into a notional 'illiterate' in fairly short order. The key with all education is to make it cheap and universal, which is what the Internet and technical journal provide. Everyone needs to speak the same scientific, technical and professional language, else one might as well be an illiterate. It is hard to keep up, let alone spend any time on other things. The true hyper-specialists spend 30-40-50 hours a week just reading the latest technical journals that come along. Where is the time for anything else....

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 26 Dec 2014 10:15

I have a few copies of "peda bAla shiksha" with me. Thus book was what my mom was taught from when she was in school K-10. Then I was born. After that she did read a whoke slew of books on telugu and did pass Hindi upto rashtra bhAsha and was cable of going much further. She read almost all classical and modern telugu and hindu authors plus telugu translations of the most important bengali, Marathi, Kannada authors. Through the encouragement of my dad she did watch not only all the important Ray and menial sen movies but she had extensive knowledge of hindu Puranas, shatakAs, history of freedom struggle, and a veritable encyclopedia of telugu proverbs. But she has only bare minimum of knowledge of mathematics and sciences. She did raise three kids yo be successful.

Some of my cousins went to the same school with the same book about two decades later. They are complete washouts. They were unable to get any job nor were able to motivate their children to higher studies. All the land they had got divided into umpteen pieces.

I have to shake my head in dismay if somebody suggests that India's primary/secondary education problems can be solved by going back to the system education which worked before. The whole world including India had moved on. There is no going back. The stakes are such that there is absolutely no way you can train people for the modern world with stories from Puranas and mathematics from leelavati. I know what I am talking about.

PS: i hope people go easy on labeling. I also have my quiver full with a variety of labels - divyAstra so to speak - of my own. It is easy to let them lose on others but I doubt their effectiveness.

negi · Post by **negi** » 26 Dec 2014 11:16

Well everything has to generate money or is directly or indirectly related to that today including education , that is why courses in institutes are being tailored for the field . In the long run what has happened is we now have at undergrad level itself branches or streams which are kind of super specialized so breadth has been compromised for depth and hence makes it difficult for people to switch across streams as against 20 years back. It was common in those days for people to have a dual degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engg. until the 80s there was no CS stream and then in 2000s they further split the CS into IT and CS.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 26 Dec 2014 11:37

.....some random thoughts generally related to the posts made above.

First, there was no suggestion made to 'go back to gurukula system' by me. I mentioned it only within the context of listing out Indic systems of education. In that list, I also mentioned Nalanda and Taxila. If there are others in this list, may it be mentioned. I tend to concur that there has not been much documentation by Indics, whether it is history or anything else. To keep the focus on the discussion on education (and not on history, sociology etc.) , if anyone has any sources of documentation on systems of education, please provide any links.

Again, no one suggested (certainly not me) that one small system can answer the needs of today's research. It would not and discussing this is a diversion. But then, it is absolutely worth asking if a gurukul type situation was expanded from 10 students to 10,000 students, what would it look like (and is it even possible etc.). A lot of the systems we see today (educational, administrative, cars, planes, electrical circuits/grids, medical etc.), anywhere in the world, evolved from previous systems, with increasing complexity over time; so I would say it is worth tracking the evolution over time, atleast as a thought experiment. And if the idea is has no merit, it will show up in some form.

The main question is: in absence of rigorous documentation on education methods, could one deduce it from anything that survives today, and if so how. And if the answer is that it cannot be known, that is tantamount to saying that 'we'll never know, so we start with a clean slate' which takes us squarely to the end of discussion, which is fine. One potential way to figure out something is to look for major achievements and figure out how could they be executed. But beyond temples/forts/ports and associated structures, I do not see any concrete examples that remain today (perhaps metallurgy for sword manufacture, and yes Charaka/Susrutha are mentioned in the context of surgery etc. but details are very few. And advances in subjects like Mathematics/trignometry can be done by a few, smart, motivated people and does not require society to train large numbers of people.)

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 26 Dec 2014 16:39

matrimc wrote:I have a few copies of "peda bAla shiksha" with me. Thus book was what my mom was taught from when she was in school K-10. Then I was born. After that she did read a whoke slew of books on telugu and did pass Hindi upto rashtra bhAsha and was cable of going much further. She read almost all classical and modern telugu and hindu authors plus telugu translations of the most important bengali, Marathi, Kannada authors. Through the encouragement of my dad she did watch not only all the important Ray and menial sen movies but she had extensive knowledge of hindu Puranas, shatakAs, history of freedom struggle, and a veritable encyclopedia of telugu proverbs. But she has only bare minimum of knowledge of mathematics and sciences. She did raise three kids yo be successful.

Some of my cousins went to the same school with the same book about two decades later. They are complete washouts. They were unable to get any job nor were able to motivate their children to higher studies. All the land they had got divided into umpteen pieces.

I have to shake my head in dismay if somebody suggests that India's primary/secondary education problems can be solved by going back to the system education which worked before. The whole world including India had moved on. There is no going back. The stakes are such that there is absolutely no way you can train people for the modern world with stories from Puranas and mathematics from leelavati. I know what I am talking about.

PS: i hope people go easy on labeling. I also have my quiver full with a variety of labels - divyAstra so to speak - of my own. It is easy to let them lose on others but I doubt their effectiveness.

Duh.. it is obviously not going to work that way.. It is a question of concept.
In the old days, it was good for children to go into the jungle, learn about nature and the world. They would pick up various trades as well such as warfare, temple building or whatever.

In today's world similarly we should be taking kids out and showing them how to deposit a bank cheque, how railway trains work, how to operate a fire extinguisher, elections, driving vehicles, hospitals, and a thousand other things.

We don't do any of these things in schools. It is left to parents and kids struggle with this stuff some time on their own. Instead schools focus on muggings and exams. Please tell me how this mugging is helping?

And yes science knowledge is very much required not just the theory but also practical application (which is lacking).. Languages are another fked up problem when it comes to the Indian context.

As for your specific examples I cannot think of a better way to teach ethics and behavior by discussing stories from puranas ( that might be too 'communal' for some.. ) . There is no reason why you can not learn some mathematics by solving problems from Lilavati , not obviously in the original Sanskrit form but restated in a way that makes sense..

We are not going to change Indian education overnight. But that is no excuse for letting things be as they are.

As Swami Vivekananda says.. before you can crawl half a mile, you want to jump the ocean like a Hanuman..
That will not happen..

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 26 Dec 2014 16:59

SriKumar wrote:
Again, no one suggested (certainly not me) that one small system can answer the needs of today's research. It would not and discussing this is a diversion. But then, it is absolutely worth asking if a gurukul type situation was expanded from 10 students to 10,000 students, what would it look like (and is it even possible etc.).

As a thought experiment this is quite easy. You simply have 200 Gurus running your 10,000 student Gurukul.

Actually we are not that far from a Gurukul system even now. The main problems are 1. the system ( too much focused on muggings and exams ) and 2. the teachers running that system, which for the most part are just no good.

What should be done is there should be a proper mentorship programme such that the top 1% of students become the teachers of the next generation at some point in their life. Obviously, not everyone will want or can be a guru right away, so everyone can find their own path.

Right now in the Indian context what happens is that the top 1% disappears down the brain drain, never to be seen or heard from again. The next top 10% go for MNCs, business, private and public sector jobs. Being a teacher is regarded as a sort of loser-ish job so its not surprising that there are few takers for it. Even those who do go in for teaching want to be college professors at top institutes and the rest goes for a toss.

-----

Actually, the current Narendra Modi govt. and Smriti Irani are making moves very much in my line of thinking.

http://www.niticentral.com/2014/12/26/n ... 93154.html

Check out Modi's speech about teacher education ( starts at 25 min, although the whole is worth watching )

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 26 Dec 2014 17:22

Theo_Fidel wrote:
matrimc wrote:Today one person cannot know even what is all the research being done in the world in her own area (make it as narrow as you want) leave alone reading and understanding all the research.
Yup! And if one does not keep up with the times one turns into a notional 'illiterate' in fairly short order. The key with all education is to make it cheap and universal, which is what the Internet and technical journal provide. Everyone needs to speak the same scientific, technical and professional language, else one might as well be an illiterate. It is hard to keep up, let alone spend any time on other things. The true hyper-specialists spend 30-40-50 hours a week just reading the latest technical journals that come along. Where is the time for anything else....

negi wrote:Well everything has to generate money or is directly or indirectly related to that today including education , that is why courses in institutes are being tailored for the field . In the long run what has happened is we now have at undergrad level itself branches or streams which are kind of super specialized so breadth has been compromised for depth and hence makes it difficult for people to switch across streams as against 20 years back. It was common in those days for people to have a dual degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engg. until the 80s there was no CS stream and then in 2000s they further split the CS into IT and CS.

Not at all, you just need to have the right approach.

To give my own example I went from CS to Aerospace and now Mechanical Engg. with some weird junk in between ( internship in astronomy, electronics/hobby stuff, an agriculture project, and working in IT companies ) . It is a little unusual but not that uncommon- just the other day I met a chap on the train who trained in an Ayurveda college and then went into fashion designing.. now he designs stuff for minor film heroines as well as offering them Ayurvedic advice.. trust me this chap is quite real. I find that my somewhat weird post-school education has enabled me to approach problems in four or five different directions simultaneously.. other people just can't do that. Specialization is a con. Interdisciplinary research is the key.

I just want to rubbish this notion that changing disciplines is somehow extremely difficult.. it isn't. Provided you know how to learn. The problem is our education system does not teach children how to learn nor does it enable teachers to learn how to teach. That is the tragedy.

I do not have to read 10000 papers in my area. I can read the top 10 or 20 and pick up the concept just fine. A good academic researcher should work 40 hrs a week of which 10-15 at max should be spent reading. If you are spending 30-50 hrs a week reading just to 'keep up', you are doing it wrong.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 26 Dec 2014 18:24

negi wrote:Well everything has to generate money or is directly or indirectly related to that today including education , that is why courses in institutes are being tailored for the field . In the long run what has happened is we now have at undergrad level itself branches or streams which are kind of super specialized so breadth has been compromised for depth and hence makes it difficult for people to switch across streams as against 20 years back. It was common in those days for people to have a dual degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engg. until the 80s there was no CS stream and then in 2000s they further split the CS into IT and CS.

disagree .. Undergrad Majors at most decent places are pretty broad based... Like physics , math,CS , electrical engineering etc...no decent place I know of offers narrow specialty majors at undergrad level...list of Undergrad majors @ MIT madarssa...all broad based subjects....

http://mitadmissions.org/discover/majors

some unscrupulous places do offer undergrad in catchy sounding narrow subjects...but a bachelors in artificial intelligence , or "nanotechnology" will be more likely seen in lovely professional university than MIT or Stan madarssa or IIT where it will be a graduate or a peechaddi level undertaking...

dual majors are still very common.... combinations like Physics/Math ,Math/CS Physics/Engineering are still favourites...and you can practically do anything after such combinations..so changing field is not big deal..

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 26 Dec 2014 18:34

>>Today one person cannot know even what is all the research being done in the world in her own area (make it as narrow as you want) leave alone reading and understanding all the research.

+108

even in the topics I am really good at ,after having seen 100s of patients of a disease , having published research on it,taught etc , I still learn something new everyday...so do my teachers...

IMHO no one can or should attempt keeping up with everything ...what is most important is master over the basics.. no one can neglect mastering fundamentals and thing he would get away with it..

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 26 Dec 2014 19:38

negi wrote:Well everything has to generate money or is directly or indirectly related to that today including education , that is why courses in institutes are being tailored for the field . In the long run what has happened is we now have at undergrad level itself branches or streams which are kind of super specialized so breadth has been compromised for depth and hence makes it difficult for people to switch across streams as against 20 years back. It was common in those days for people to have a dual degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engg. until the 80s there was no CS stream and then in 2000s they further split the CS into IT and CS.

..just a quick comment....I dont believe things were any easier 20 years ago in the desi arena, regarding switching fields. THe education system was just as rigid as it is now, and I would say, even more so. Also, I dont believe it was 'common' for people to have dual degrees 20 years ago (perhaps you meant US/Europe and not India?). Doing a full-blown Bachelor's degree in two areas would require 6 years at the very least, to 7 years of study (include labs, final year project etc.), and, something like would be possible only where the educational system has a provision for it ...i.e. a curriculum is set up that allows the students to take a large number of courses in second area (and different students could choose different second areas), and formally awarding a degree in the two areas. It would certainly be possible in the US/Europe systems given that the system has flexibility and permits it, and even encourages such cross-pollination. It is as much a function of how the system is set up to allow it (in addition to the person having an interest). Desi systems, if anything, were less flexible 10 and 20 years ago than today. Look at age limits as an example of this inflexibility, these exist even today for entry into a Bachelor's program, .....there is no intellectual or technical reason to have an age limit on learning a new area if a person wants to study the areas (and especially to have limits in late teens or 20s is bad, that is the time to learn the fundamentals); reasons can only be bureaucratic or resource-based limitations etc..

negi · Post by **negi** » 26 Dec 2014 19:58

gakakkad you have picked up pure sciences and there too quoted scenario in Massa to substantiate which is ok ; what I had posted was about scene in India.

I graduated in 2005 so I do not qualify to comment on the pure science scene for to be brutally honest by late 90s Engg. craze had gripped India , just look at BRF itself how many are pure science grads vs Engg. grads ? Somewhere in 90s we seemed to have goofed up . Even likes of Loyola Chennai, Presidency College Kolkata or even St. Stephens Delhi have lost their sheen , these places back in 40s-70s had pretty big names as their alumni today outside India the only institution known for cultivation of pure science is IISC rest are living under a shadow of their glorious past.

A vicious circle has formed i.e. the cream from +2 goes for MBBS/Engg. prusuing pure sciences is Plan B (there are exceptions but that number is just too small) then again out of those who do pursue pure sciences only a very few make it to academics and again the cream goes to the industry those who do not land up a job reluctantly have to take that route (before 6th pay commission came into force there was no way any capable chap with mouths to feed would take up this route , again exceptions do exist) . All in all pure science scene in India is pretty bleak .

Coming to Engineering aside from IITs and NITs most of the colleges are gradually tailoring their syllabus for industry , nice quick solutions which make people ready for a IT job is what everyone is into these days . Have a look at syllabus for Engg. undergrad syllabus in desh in 8th semester even Electronics and Mechanical ENgg chaps are doing Java, E commerce and latest I heard is Big Data is going to be introduced shortly (one Engg. college where we recruit from actually approached our department and asked us to help formulate their syllabus they wanted to teach Analytics and Big Data to students ).

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 26 Dec 2014 20:43

>>Coming to Engineering aside from IITs and NITs most of the colleges are gradually tailoring their syllabus for industry , nice quick solutions which make people ready for a IT job is what everyone is into these days .

that is bad.. . That would create code coolies even after resources of creating full fledged engineers...and even for code coolies they ll create lousy ones while they are at it..
Indian education is in dumps..

>>help formulate their syllabus they wanted to teach Analytics and Big Data to students ).

don't know much about these... forgive my ignorance but what exactly is this stuff.. I know that it has something to do with massive volumes of data and would be used in places like CERN, or NSA or goldman sachs that need to store petabytes of stuff .. is it to advanced for under grads ? or is it just some passing fad ? or did they want to teach it to the wrong people ?

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 26 Dec 2014 21:16

.....to add a quick comment to negi's post about trends mentioned. There was/is a craze towards injeenearing for a while (decades) but starting in the late 90's/early 2000s, injeenearing was no longer about actual engineering. It became a stepping stone towards IT (for obvious reasons.....what pay would a civil/mech engineer get in a civil/mech job, vs, if changed to IT field, what would he get.... just an observation). Engineering has become more one-dimensional in that sense.....

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 26 Dec 2014 21:22

Negi saar,

The pure Science vs Engineering stuff is related to the 4 year vs 3 years issue. For education in USA you need 4 years degree, ergo most folks in BRF skipped pure science. Personally back when it was tougher to get into Loyola/MCC type places for science streams. Esp. Physics the wait list and cutoff was and is unreal.

IMHO no one can or should attempt keeping up with everything...

Pardon me G saar,

I know where you are coming from but the people who advance your field very much have to read everything. It is OK for the average abdul coolie type to follow the example of the leaders and keep up with the major new advancements only, with just a general focus, but for those on the cutting edge, specialization and keeping abreast of the state of the art is everything... ...and the state of art is changing all the time, at least in my chosen field. What I learnt in college is very out of date now and 90%+ of what I use now was learned on the job, with ongoing state mandated training....

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 26 Dec 2014 22:40

gakakkad wrote: don't know much about these... forgive my ignorance but what exactly is this stuff.. I know that it has something to do with massive volumes of data and would be used in places like CERN, or NSA or goldman sachs that need to store petabytes of stuff .. is it to advanced for under grads ? or is it just some passing fad ? or did they want to teach it to the wrong people ?

I will post one game written in Python in algorithms thread. Taking it o the logical end of apllting for immunology/public health will be worth a few PhDs in CS, math, stats, medicine, public policy, and economics, and even sociology and social work.

Or another problem can go into deterrence thread. It can be and is solved in high school calculus right after volume integration. Going from there to estimates of yields of the 1998 nuc tests would be a major undertaking. more the data the tighter bounds on yield. Indian scientists can guesstimate how close the U.S. and Chinese can get because they know what information is available to them.

Big data is important but cannot be and should not be taught at undegraduate level.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 26 Dec 2014 22:57

Srikumar and Csaurabh: my post was not directed at you at all.

I have been hearing this "bring back gurukula" system with increasing frequency from people of all stripes as if it is some kind of a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets in solving the primary education problem anywhere and more specifically india. What is needed is a core group (in India's case a very rage core group) of are motivated teachers who love to teach, are driven to teach, make their subjects interesting, not dumb it down. It is an expensive undertaking. "Thu polish" like quick band aids, while cheap, are neither effective nor long term solutions.

About 18 years back I heard a high school student of a well known convent in a major metro ruttafying fcts like "bill gates is te richest man in the world". I was curious as to what subject it was that would require one to remember such facts. It was "General knowledge". Looks like irony left town.

Education has to be democratized which was not even as late as when I was going to school in 1970s. It was elitist, more so English, math, and sciences. One can imagine what would have been the case a couple of thousand years back when gurukula system was at its zenith.

It is a matter of scale which requires enormous amounts of resources. A few islands of excellence or a few ramanujans, cvramnans - to whit - are not going to cut it. Money has to be spent and spent like water. A large scale social change is required to create a society in which school teachers and knowledge are respected just like the gurus of gurukula soft the yore. That is the only thing one can take away from our hoary past. Nothing more. The processes, management, organization, infrastructure all have to be the most recent and most affordable for India's scale.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 27 Dec 2014 08:08

The way I see it there are two problems: first is infrastructure, and second is teachers and teaching methods.

As far as mass education is concerned infrastructure is the huge problem.. Eg. lack of girls toilet, school is 10 km away, etc. These are solvable if the people who run the bureaucracy send their kids to private schools. See this article here

http://www.niticentral.com/2014/12/22/b ... 92573.html

Standing outside the gate of a private school where my children study, I often noticed with great dismay the number of Government vehicles that came to drop children of Government officers. While it was blatant misuse of vehicles, I wonder why should children of top Governmnet officers study in this private school. Isn’t it appropriate that those children study in Government schools only? While it is indeed a fact that the private school in question was one of the well known schools in Chennai, the answer to this question is obvious. Needless to emphasise, this private school offers better quality of education than Government schools. That explains this clamour for private schools even by Government officers.

But what about Government schools? Who would send their children to such school knowing pretty well that the quality of education available in such public school is abysmal? The answer to this question is not far to seek. Public schools essentially are for those who are unable to pay for education in private schools. Yet it is this class that is desperate for quality education. Naturally, this clamour for private schools by children of Government officers unnecessarily raises demand for private schools. Elementary economics would tell us that excessive demand leads to increases in prices. And that is what is happening in India on account of this skew in demand for private schools, especially at the elementary level raises fees and thereby making such quality education out of reach of most ordinary Indians.

In fact, India must be one of the few countries where cost of educating a child at a primary level is several times more than educating him at the higher levels. This needs to change where quality education [especially at the primary level] must not only be available to a select few but must be affordable to all Indians. Whatever stated above is not something new. Neither is the establishment unaware of this paradigm. In fact, we as a nation are conscious of the challenges faced by having vast swaths of our population illiterate. Yet, successive Government have been unable to come up with a comprehensive solution to tackle this issue.

The UPA Government true to its ideology saw the problem as one of lack of Governmental intervention, budgetary allocation and funding. Apart from raising budgetary allocations to the education sector, the previous Government also deemed it fit to levy a surchage of three per cent on all taxes. But what about outcome? Crucially, what is the result a decade later after identifying the problem and even effectuating a solution through increased allocations? The answer once again is obvious.

Reform the Delivery Process

A reference to an RTI application made by my friend in Chennai at this point would be in order. The question on how many children study in the same Government school in Tamil Nadu where their parents are employed as teachers revealed startling results. In some of the schools in certain districts not many children [in some places not even one student was enrolled] studied in public schools where their parents were employed as teachers.

No wonder the quality of education in such schools is abysmal. Now spending billions of rupees on such schools is naturally not transforming these public schools. Where is the question of quality when my son or daughter is not studying in the school where I am employed as a teacher? Who would address this disconnect and how? More importantly, the infrastructure of these schools are seen to be believed. Children especially girls are loath to go to such public schools simply in the absence of clean toilets. But in New Delhi, we have conference after conference on improving literacy for girl children without addressing this fundamental issue of toilet for girl child in schools and its effect on women illeteracy.

Arthur Lewit the author of a seminal work Freakonomics calls this the power of small ideas that ultimately usher in big changes over a period of time. But how could we bring in this change? One way out to address this situation is to mandate that every employee of the Government, both State and Central, [including Ministers] drawing salary from the consolidated fund of India must necessarily send their children ONLY to Government schools till 10th standard.

But I am sure that this simple idea would transform the education, especially primary education, in India. A girl child of an education secretary studying in public school is all that would take to solve the lack of toilets there. But this will necessarily upset the Nehruvian consensus of our elites. How can a daughter of an office of the Government of India go to the same school where the son of an ordinary auto-driver goes?

Yet, our elites would lecture us on equality!

What should enthuse the Finance Minister is that this idea may not require any Budgetary Allocation. All that is required is a fiat followed by a determination to implement it. Another area of such “reforms” is in public health. Mandate that public servants [or their kin] must necessarily get treated in public hospitals. I am sure all our 600-odd districts would some how contrive to get AIIMS like institutes within the next five years. Else not even land will be identified in this time period for such hospitals.

The core point that I am seeking to emphasise is that the there is a complete disconnect between our bureacracy and the services they provide. This is why services provided by the Government are inefficient and poor in quality. Tragically, it is our poor who are the direct victims of such sloppy services provided by the Government. And whenever the services are poor or inefficient [telecommunications for instance] the Government has taken a privatisation route. Education, public health and public transport in India are incapable being completely privatised. On the contrary, there is crying need for the Goverment to intervene and deliver effectively.

Obviously, it is here we need quick, efficient and incisive reforms. Sadly, successive Government, probably because of vested interests, have ducked the issue. Unfortunately, little do we realise that an ineffective delivery mechanism makes such grandiose budgetary allocations irrelevant. After all anything multiplied by zero is zero.

Naturally, given the deep freeze in reforms in services provided by the Government, the only way out is to redefine the reforms process itself. Like charity, reforms must begin at home. It must compel the bureaucracy to taste its own medicine. How about education and public health for starters? Will the Finance Minister mandate that children of Government servants should necessarily send their children to Public schools from academic year 2015-2016?

However even if we solve the infrastructure problem, that does not by itself guarantee good teaching. This is even with use of internet, technology and so on. By itself such things can help only to some extent, but a true educational revolution can come about only with good teachers.

See this video

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 27 Dec 2014 09:24

I strongly believe that solving "infrastructure problems" ( such as having adequate toilets, roads to schools, computers and so on) is not enough by itself. I will illustrate this by giving my own example, keep in mind this is at what would be called a 'TOP QUALITY' school and the problems I faced had nothing to do with infrastructure.

Going by grades and marks I was no good student in primary school, would get around 30th rank in a class of 50. Looking at it in hindsight, the biggest reason for this was that I did not have a grasp on English, nor a mind for mugging. Not understanding English meant that I also couldn't follow all the other subjects, and I was unable to memorize anything.

Eventually I learned English ( no thanks to any freaking teachers, but by reading mass amounts of Enid Blyton, Hardy boys, newspapers and watching cartoons on TV ), and rose to the 1st rank. I also learned mugging, and at the height of my 'mugging prowess' in 9th and 10th standards I could quote entire chapters word by word from memory. Those skills are now in disuse.

Again as far as other subjects go I do not think I learned anything from school. I learned Sanskrit and Hindi as well as kindling a first love for science and technology by watching Discovery Channel in Hindi ( later on through textbooks as well as popular science books ). As well as a lot of Ramayana , Mahabharat and other stuff on TV which were not only cool stories but taught me a lot about ethics and moral behavior.

Maybe it wasn't all bad. The science, math and a few computer programming classes were okay and the phy, chem labs had some cool experiments. As well as a lot of extra curricular activities like games, quizzes, science experiments, various practical arts and crafts later on. But the core of it - the so called 'Arts subjects' were plain rubbish.

In 11th and 12th I got an excellent teacher in coaching classes which did really help me, and later on in IITs etc. But whatever success I may have had later on ( eg. < 100 JEE rank if you want a number ) was not brought out in my primary education - instead it seems like the system was actively designed against it.

One event from 5th standard has seared itself onto my memory. We were asked a question like this: <blank> is the largest country in the world. <blank>, <blank>, <blank> are some of its neighbors.

This question seemed a little bit odd because it didn't seem to be from the 'syllabus' , yet from my 'general knowledge' at the time I filled in Russia for the first, and China, Mongolia, Kazakhastan for the three neighbors.

Lo and behold, it turned out that the largest country was 'India' , and of the three neighbours I got a tick mark for China, and wrong for the others.

The worst part being that when I confronted the teacher afterwards, she pointed me to a passage in the book which said 'India is one of the largest countries in the world', and I could not convince her that 'one of the' was not the same thing as 'the' , and moreover, if the answer to the country was wrong, it did not make sense that one of the neighbours would be 'right'. She showed no understanding of the situation whatsoever and that was the point I figured that teachers in this 'TOP QUALITY' school are mostly junk.

Somehow I don't remember much of my early childhood school days except for this sorry episode. I also remember being asked to "stand outside the class" ( punishment ) a lot.

I'm sorry if it seems a little too vitriolic but the truth is that I gained almost nothing whatsoever from the "TOP QUALITY" school except a piece of paper with a degree stamped on it. It took me a long time to realize this because it was drilled into us from childhood that we were getting the BEST education in our country, which is probably true, it's just that the BEST doesn't amount to very much.

Education in India is a psychologically scarring process. I would not wish it on anyone.

The hankering for Gurukula system is not a wish to go to some forest and sing bhajans. It is a desire to have competent teachers with real vision, understanding and caring.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 27 Dec 2014 13:01

>>Education in India is a psychologically scarring process. I would not wish it on anyone.

true...

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 27 Dec 2014 22:30

As Csaurabh said, Overuse of technology is not only not helpful, it could even be harmful.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 27 Dec 2014 23:17

gakakkad wrote:>>Education in India is a psychologically scarring process. I would not wish it on anyone.true...

physiologically too!

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 27 Dec 2014 23:20

Personally, as a government school product, I'm not particularly scarred by the process. While studying I always felt the majority of teachers did the best they could with the limited amount of tools at their hands. Were there a few disinterested or even sadistic types, yup. But that is true of work and life as well. I think teachers in India have a tough job on their hands, their classes are way overloaded for instance, my own government school class had 150+ students per teacher. And there are always a few jacka$$ types in class who disrupt proceedings. I actually remember liking GK, it allowed kids to demonstrate what they knew on their own. Gave kids a better sense of what was the purpose of knowledge - to be put to use in your life. Teachers in India must be doing something right or we would not be here and neither would India's rapidly growing economy. Every test has shown that this generation of Indians will be the best educated and skilled group ever. And the next generation will be better skilled and even more productive. We must give the majority of credit to our teachers. Though remembering at the same time that they and we are not at world competitive levels yet....

..To this day I remember Miss Uma my chemistry teacher from Govt. School. Wonderful lady, paid money out of her pocket, so I could go to the NCERT talent show....

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 27 Dec 2014 23:26

Theo: that was then. I am also a product of public school system till 12th. Probably just a little younger than you are. In those days teachers were well respected barring a few bad apple parents/children and a few bad apple teachers.

Over the years the growing needs of the nation was not kept up with - in terms of infra and teachers. For example India's defence budget was almost same as education budget even as late as 70s. So the burden was taken up by a few private convents which turned into a money making and agenda pushing enterprise.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 27 Dec 2014 23:36

matrimc wrote:TheI that was then. I am also a product of public school system till 12th. Probably just a little younger than you are. In those days teachers were well respected barring a few bad apple parents/children and a few bad apple teachers.

I think they still are. Visiting my Government school these days the majority of teachers are dedicated and interested types. Are they Richard Feynmen level, no... ..but in their domain they do the best they can. My own view is that society sets the standards, and right now the standard is quick cushy job, followed by kalyannam-kottu-narangan, little penn-payan in 3 years, followed by holidays in switzerland, apartment in korratur, getting kids in english/convent school, etc. And somehow teachers are expected to deliver on this. They do it by crushing the spirits of the high strung kids. You have to remember that in the West folks following their dreams, who end up changing the world have a very different priority set. You may not like these people on a personal level if you met them. Indian society is not ready for that yet, certainly Indian women are not ready for it.....

I do agree with you that more needs to be spend on education and more teachers are needed. Expenditure has to get to 6% of GPD at least from the present 3% or so.... ..teachers need better pay as well...

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 27 Dec 2014 23:45

Theo_Fidel wrote: And somehow teachers are expected to deliver on this. They do it by crushing the spirits of the high strung kids. You have to remember that in the West folks following their dreams, who end up changing the world have a very different priority set. You may not like these people on a personal level if you met them. Indian society is not ready for that yet, certainly Indian women are not ready for it.....

...

wise words....

Good stuff TF

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 28 Dec 2014 00:30

I went to a pretty decent private school. We had some excellent teachers and I was the hyper achiever type ever since I can remember.My school is certainly not representative of an average Indian school.It is quite the opposite in fact.It fostered creativity , free thinking ,experimentation etc. In those days Gujarat never performed well in JEE/PMT or olympiad as admission to professional courses was via ,board exams. I got through all of these. We had exchange students from Europe , some of whom became my lifelong friends.

What ruined it for me was med school. It was here , I first encountered the real "India". I was perceived by my teachers to be an arrogant know it all ,who did not know how to give respect. That is when I realized that free thinking , creativity etc is not universal to India. Most of the country was rigid and if someone showed signs of excellence , he was to be beaten to mediocrity. I realized that there was no way in hell I could undergo , residency training in India. Even though I was perceived to be popular, I made few friends in med school .And those were from a background similar to mine.My lot was hated by teachers as being a bunch of rebels . In fact a prof scolded his kid for talking to us as he felt we would spoil him. (He was an year junior to us.) And no , we were not boozers or druggies .

I was lucky to get through a top university program in massa ,which took few foreign grads. And I felt , a deja vu sensation. It was like I was back to my school. I began taking liberties which would certainly have been forbidden in an Indian program .

>>And somehow teachers are expected to deliver on this. They do it by crushing the spirits of the high strung kids. You have to remember that in the West folks following their dreams, who end up changing the world have a very different priority set. You may not like these people on a personal level if you met them. Indian society is not ready for that yet, certainly Indian women are not ready for it.....

I have met some ... A good friend of mine interacts with zuckerberg frequently . He says that zuckerberg is a ****** .But he is still glad the ***** exist. because he changed the world in a positive way.. Bezos is also a c******a I heard..And Howard Hughes was equally legendary for stuff besides his engineering and enterprise . I don't mind people being unlikable at a personal level if they are doing good for the society ...We may have different priorities from the west. But crushing dreams of enterprising folks isn't quite one of them. It is time we admit the reality . Our education system sucks . It has shattered dreams and ambitions of potentially millions of talented folks. It is time we concede the reality that everyone already knew in the back of the mind. And lack of budget is not the only reason... The obedience , wrote learning , crushing of the spirit of inquiry is not a product of necessity. But it is a legacy of our colonial past that we must get rid of ASAP.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 28 Dec 2014 00:48

G saar,

India society behaves that way saar. What to do only. You could join a PSU or GOI or Reliance or Apollo Hospital and I suspect you would be treated the same way. It is easy to blame teachers when the problem is deeper than that...

Right now one of the few risk takers in Indian society, Mallya, is being ripped apart for failing with his KingFisher airline. No one points out that Air India is the most catastrophic failure that eats through what Mallya risked and lost in 6 months every year.... ..yet every year GOI forks 0ver Rs6,000+ crore over no questions asked, including this government....

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 28 Dec 2014 01:10

Budget is a big reason.

<OT> (quote to see it)
In Telugu we have a saying "batuka lEka baDi pantulu" - one who is unable to find any other job does teaching. By the way, I also disagree that facebook was good for society. Jobs, yes. I will post a link to an article by Paul Graham which I read long time back and liked enormously. Just being a rebel is not going to cut it. The scientific method - in ancient, dark ages, or rennaisance times - is to question after poorva paksha.

As per crushing the dreams etc., I have seen IITians (or people of that calibre) come to US with airs. Those who did not know the stuff got their heads handed over to them on a platter. Some others who went to the very top (of CS - that is who I know most) would have done so irrespective of the UG school they went to. Going to IIT would certainly open the doors. After they enter the room, everybody is more or less on the same footing.

I urge everybody to read and ask your children to read the Pultizer prize winning book "Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder. I did meet one of the people in the book.

In the long run grades (as long as they are decent - in the top decile) and rank in the IIT or other various entrance exams, GRE etc. do not matter. They are just steps in a long ascent to the top. Several who are extremely promising either burn out or find their limits. Sometimes it is simply that they peaked to early - during their undergrad years and just continue to slide upwards because of the momentum. Paul Erdos' biography "The man who loved only numbers" is the case in point. He never flagged but he was not normal. He was one of a kind, so was von Neumann, or Turing.
</OT>

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 Dec 2014 07:21

of course the solution lies on solving both sides of the problem coin. people should be investing in education, and at the same having minimum edu standards especially with the edu process itself, teachers and the type of education being imparted, etc. matters. there is a huge parity between massan vs indic style comparison where it is all about memory power vs. creative thinking/useful thinking.

the bad apples are there with every strategy we can come up with.. so, the pointer is there.. remove them!

===

btw, the author is right here
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/12/22/b ... 92573.html

We should mandate all public servants, legal services, civil, police, politicians, gov employees, mil must send their kids only to public schools. automagically education will get the needed focus and attention. automagically the best teachers will be deployed!

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 28 Dec 2014 09:53

csaurabh: How much would that IITian doing Fashion Design pay for the education listed here?

industrial design: course descriptions

How much would be the tuition room and board for an equivalent degree at NID, Ahmedabad? Which of the two would be able to pay off their education loans faster? By the way can somebody find anything in the above course description that is concrete and useful for improving the lives of BPL Indians?

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 28 Dec 2014 10:49

>>As per crushing the dreams etc., I have seen IITians (or people of that calibre) come to US with airs. Those who did not know the stuff got their heads handed over to them on a platter. Some others who went to the very top (of CS - that is who I know most) would have done so irrespective of the UG school they went to. Going to IIT would certainly open the doors. After they enter the room, everybody is more or less on the same footing.

I have seen that too . AIIMS people have a tendency to have hot air surrounding them. And I have seen two guys from there getting there H&D handed over..on guy (I ll call him apdul) was particularly nasty .. He would introduce himself as Apdul from AIIMS (As in Hi! I am Apdul from AIIMS).. Why would anyone in massa be expected to know aiims ? He would explain ad nauseum about the difficult selection process and only 50 guys out of a 100000 getiing in.. He became a butt of some pretty nasty jokes...he couldn't even go back to India as that would have been a bigger blow to his h&d ...he stayed in unkil and kept getting bullied...and will likely remain on anti-depressant for life..

Why do we revere toppers of these exams like they are gods ? why is cracking these considered an end in itself?
todays toilet has an interview about the female IIM topper with 100th %tile ..

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home ... mpaign=TOI

why should toilet even be covering the damn thing? And why is it the fact that she is a female important at all ? fortunately she seems a grounded kid... I know that her career is a personal choice .But she is apparently still a final year chem engg student at BITS pilani...she could have perhaps done more for the society as an engineer than she would as a manager.It is likely that people preparing for CAT in final year is because of the air surrounding it.the salaries that get published and the glorification of previous toppers...

So long as we keep up this nonsense , we ll continue having the problem..

I urge everybody to read and ask your children to read the Pultizer prize winning book "Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder. I did meet one of the people in the book.

Paul Erdos' biography "The man who loved only numbers" is the case in point. He never flagged but he was not normal. He was one of a kind, so was von Neumann, or Turing.

Thanks for the suggested reading... I just bought Erdos' biography...

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 28 Dec 2014 11:02

matrimc wrote:csaurabh: How much would that IITian doing Fashion Design pay for the education listed here?

industrial design: course descriptions

How much would be the tuition room and board for an equivalent degree at NID, Ahmedabad? Which of the two would be able to pay off their education loans faster? By the way can somebody find anything in the above course description that is concrete and useful for improving the lives of BPL Indians?

I have no clue. The dude I spoke of wasn't even an IITian. Just some guy I met on a train two weeks back.

If you are asking the question in the rhetorical sense, then I agree that for a lot of people, the cost of education is very high while the quality of education is very low.

As for the BPL Indians thing this is the same question as to why India can have a space program yet not solve poverty. The world does not work that way.

For a concrete example I will say that one of my friends is now an entrepreneur who maintains a website that buys and sells Indian art. This helps the 'BPL' tribal artists who would otherwise be unknown. Of course this can be spun in capitalism vs communism or other such gibberish. I will not go into this debate. This is by means the only example.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 28 Dec 2014 11:20

>>As per crushing the dreams etc., I have seen IITians (or people of that calibre) come to US with airs. Those who did not know the stuff got their heads handed over to them on a platter. Some others who went to the very top (of CS - that is who I know most) would have done so irrespective of the UG school they went to. Going to IIT would certainly open the doors. After they enter the room, everybody is more or less on the same footing.

True that.. I needed 2-3 years to deflate my head a little and see things for what they were instead of being stuck on ego issues..

Perhaps it helped that I spent no time in the West except for a couple months internship in US which I disliked and decided that country is not for me.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 Dec 2014 11:38

^did not get you there to that IITian head on the platter deal.. and your dislikes.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 28 Dec 2014 14:03

matrimc wrote: I urge everybody to read and ask your children to read the Pultizer prize winning book "Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder. I did meet one of the people in the book.

I love that book

. Which person did you meet, just curious? Surely not the engineer who famously declared "I've given up and joined a commune and will not deal with any unit of time smaller than one season!" (I'm paraphrasing from memory here).

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 28 Dec 2014 21:51

gakakkad wrote: why is cracking these considered an end in itself? todays toilet has an interview about the female IIM topper with 100th %tile .........why should toilet even be covering the damn thing? .....the salaries that get published and the glorification of previous toppers... So long as we keep up this nonsense , we ll continue having the problem..

This is kind of the key to the whole thing....and what I was alluding to (perhaps tangentially) in my earlier posts. Cracking some entrance exams are considered as an end to themselves (big problem, it should be seen at best, as a great beginning)...and the question is, what comes after this....What is considered a point of success after this great beginning. I think this is a key questions. The media (newspapers, TV) etc.perpetuate this a lot (you provided a link above, and it happens every year). Other part of the problem is that friends, family and every one else also tend to go with this mind-set. I am fine with considering cracking the JEE as a sterling achievement but..... Should there be another yardstick to success beyond that, is the question. The answer is yes. So what is it...? Any why does the society at large see only TWO yardsticks for success (i) cracking an entrance exam, and (ii) earning a big salary. I personally rate a successful entrepreneur very highly, especially if they launch their own business and were even partially successful (the example is just one, but I mention it because this example is not strongly tied to academic success).

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 28 Dec 2014 22:10

csaurabh wrote:>>True that.. I needed 2-3 years to deflate my head a little and see things for what they were instead of being stuck on ego issues..

Perhaps it helped that I spent no time in the West except for a couple months internship in US which I disliked and decided that country is not for me.

Re bolded part, I think atleast in the US, there is a much less emphasis on academic prowess/brand-name colleges as a primary defining aspect of a person in general interactions (in many cases, even professionally), and the hagiography is missing or much lower than in India, generally speaking (yes, one can find exceptions, but overall this is correct). The public perception in regular media, oddly enough, is even a bit anti-intellectual, from what I am beginning to gather....was chagrinned when I first came across it.

At large:
It is very interesting (and perhaps very important) to figure out why this is the case in such a successful country i.e. success in terms of strength/size of economy, wealth generation, general education, 'brand-name' educational institutions, research output across a huge range of topics- not just injeenearing and science, and the overall quality-of-life. Much of this was not true about 150 ago. Even a 100 years ago, the quality of life was pretty basic/rudimentary in many places- rural and even urban, and in some cases, quite bad.

To clarify: the thought is not to figure why the 'hagiography' is missing, rather, what is it that is ultimately important. Perhaps it may turn out that this public emphasis on academic prowess may not matter. But, atleast it gives a new direction to consider what should be valued as a measure of success in an individual's career beyond competitive exams taken in the 17th/18th year of life.

dsreedhar · Post by **dsreedhar** » 28 Dec 2014 22:25

This is a very good discussion to shape future of India especially considering the Make in India campaign.
I want to chime in couple of my thoughts. The education system (which ever approach) need to produce both specialists and generalists. These specialists and generalists should drive - 1) innovation, 2) application of those innovations to society use, and 3) finally operation and use of the applications successfully. It seems the current generation in India is pretty good in the last category and to some extent category 2 (borrowed innovations). In contrast it seems in past of the glory days of India, we were good in category 1 but not so much in the other 2 areas.
We need to be good in all three areas to thrive and be successful. And this generally applies to any field.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 28 Dec 2014 23:33

^^^^
I wish it were that simple.

The truth is even the west is not sure what the source of innovation is or where it will come from or the nature of education required for the future. No one is certain about the future...

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 28 Dec 2014 23:41

csaurabh wrote: True that.. I needed 2-3 years to deflate my head a little and see things for what they were instead of being stuck on ego issues..

Perhaps it helped that I spent no time in the West except for a couple months internship in US which I disliked and decided that country is not for me.

Hmmm. Actually if there is one thing that I owe to the West, its that I ended up discovering that I was not an "inferior" species to the IITians as I previously believed.

I went to xyz engineering college in India and went to another xyz school of engineering in the US and at the end of that time I had a PhD admit from a "rank 3 university" in my field. Could not take it because of some personal reasons. The funny thing is, my bachelors was completely different from my masters which would have been completely different from my PhD topic (had I taken it up).

In any case, during my time in grad-school and later on my first place of employment I realized that "smartness" was really of limited utility when it comes to real engineering (and I am not being specious here). I say that with all my heart. Being of average intelligence does not prevent you from being an excellent Engineer, vice versa.