Indian Education System

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member_22733
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by member_22733 »

THe usual procedure from my home town (full of colleges only) is that the politician will buy up land around the new college and build girls hostels. This will happen around the time the deal between state/center/land-owner occurs for the main construction of the college so that the prices dont go up.

So hostels also will face same issue if Mr Achutanandan had sold a lemon. (what a name L O L ... cannot stop thinking about the obvious hindi reference). Maybe there is more to this story.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

That is a Hindoo name if I am not mistaken for a deity. Lot of Hindu names are funny to other Hindus from elsewere onlee. what to do ? We are too sickular in allowing for multiple languages to exist. :(( :rotfl:
member_22733
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by member_22733 »

Did not mean any offence. Just like Thiruvananthapuram, that name took me about 3 minutes to learn to pronounce, and I had to say it syllable by syllable a couple of times to get the flow, and the first three syllables are hard to ignore.

:P

Reminds me of my first job. Had a bunch of malloos in the batch. At a coffee stall there were a couple of beggars and I made some comment about these "poor" people. All the mallu men and women turned red for about 5 seconds I think. I had one of them pull me aside after a while to explain what exactly "poor" meant in Kerala.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by member_28108 »

gakakkad wrote:iirc IISc always had a 4 year undergrad..as far as IISER is concerned , judging by their curriculum and research , at least in Biology , they don't seem to be all that great..they have the traditional botany/zoology approach which has been discarded worldwide ..also no phy/chem and math are taught in the 4 year bio course...that is not a good thing..
Actually that is totally wrong.he courses are not arranged in that manner in IISER.Incidetnally IISc did not have undergraduate courses till the BS course was started.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

Bade wrote:Pretty dry land from the picture in the news item, water issues for a large campus could be a hindrance. Any one local to the district know better ?
Not from the district. But the area has other big campuses already in place. Ahalia Group, I guess have made a small city out there. They have a hospital, a residential school etc. in the same area.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by gakakkad »


pretty tragic..here we are dis-e-cussing the curriculum of IIT/ISER and debating on "research universities" and there are places in which these things happen.. This makes me wonder all those things about demographic dividend..
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

gakakkad wrote:

pretty tragic..here we are dis-e-cussing the curriculum of IIT/ISER and debating on "research universities" and there are places in which these things happen.. This makes me wonder all those things about demographic dividend..
India has had demographic dividend for last 60 years ( growing population ).
That does not, by itself, lead to anything.

The present education system is set up to cause artificial scarcity. That's why these things happen.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

Sachin wrote:
Bade wrote:Pretty dry land from the picture in the news item, water issues for a large campus could be a hindrance. Any one local to the district know better ?
Not from the district. But the area has other big campuses already in place. Ahalia Group, I guess have made a small city out there. They have a hospital, a residential school etc. in the same area.
Had not checked their web site previously, though had seen the name mentioned in association with the new iit as their campus is going to be used till the permanent one comes up at Pudussery. Quite impressive, and looks very green too. http://www.ahhkv.org/
The hospital building looks like it is meant for a city location.

ImageImageImage
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 629160.cms
The IIT Madras Research Park was an idea conceptualized by Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor at the electrical engineering department of IIT-M, and M S Ananth, the then dean of academic courses and later the director of the institute, to create a bridge between innovations created in the classroom and industry. It is spread across 1.2 million sq ft, houses almost 100 entities - research companies, innovation arms of large corporates, startups and incubators - and has already facilitated filing of over 60 patents.

"We realized that the rewards of R&D are significantly higher if we enable R&D personnel from industry to work jointly with our faculty and students on new ideas," says Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director of IIT Madras and a member of the board at the Research Park.

INNOVATIVE STARTUPS

The success of the ecosystem can be seen in the quality and utility of the innovations produced by its residents. Take Vortex Engineering, which is working towards financial inclusion using disruptive ATM technology. The company claims many firsts - first biometric ATMs for MNREGA, first ATMs to work without AC, and first commercially viable solar ATMs. Narayanakumar R, the chief development officer of Vortex, is all praise for the ecosystem. "Our research activities here have resulted in almost nine patents for the cash technology used in our ATMs," he says.

Ather Energy is building a smart electric scooter at the Park. Swayambhu Biologics is a biotech firm that uses a patented microbial composting process that results in creation of nutrient-rich biomanure along with the advantage of managing distillery effluents and helping industries achieve zero discharge. IIT-M's Rural Technology Business Incubator incubated Swayambhu in 2012 and gave them much needed resources, equipment and space at the Research Park. Uniphore, incubated at IIT-M in 2008 and which has filed six patents, has leveraged the institution's technical expertise to develop Akeira, a virtual assistant like Apple's Siri. Akeira can be used on any basic phone and its interactive feature keeps farmers informed of advisory messages.



Startups say the presence of R&D divisions of large companies in the same facility enables them to feed into their expertise. TCS has an innovation lab at the Research Park. TCS CTO Ananth Krishnan says the engagement model, the intellectual ambience, and proximity to faculty and students have been a huge positive. "We also get an opportunity to engage and mentor startups doing interesting work," he says.

The environment, though still in its nascent stages, has striking similarities with that of Stanford, which has long had a unique and powerful relationship with Silicon Valley. A study by Stanford academics Charles Eesley and William Miller three years ago estimated that Stanford alumni and faculty members had founded 39,900 companies since the 1930s, creating 5.4 million jobs and generating annual revenues of $2.7 trillion. Its students and alumni have founded companies like Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco to the more recent Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla,Netflix, Paypal, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.

UNIQUE MODEL

IIT-M says it has differentiated the model to suit the Indian context. Director Ramamurthi says the Research Park is perhaps the only one that measures the extent of collaboration with clients through a "credit system". The system assigns points to clients for different joint activities, ranging from joint patent development to supporting student interns. "Unlike Stanford, where the research ecosystem is for academia-industry linkages, while entrepreneurship development happens across the board, IIT-M's facility has succeeded in combining research and entrepreneurial elements in one ecosystem," says Rajan Srikanth, co-president of Keiretsu Forum, an angel investor.

Nagaraja Prakasam, mentor in residence at the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at IIM-Bangalore, says the IIT-M Research Park ecosystem is creating ventures of high technical quality that are solving realworld problems, going beyond internet and mobile consumer ventures. Prakasam is an investor in Uniphore and is in talks with several other ventures for similar relationships.

Shripathi Acharya, managing partner at seed funding venture AngelPrime in Bengaluru, says he would advise startups to have a presence at the Research Park for multiple reasons -- professionalism that comes with being present in such a location, the peer learning that happens at the growth stage, and the visibility that it brings to their ventures.

The Research Park could soon get additional muscle with the IIT Alumni Club proposing an 'IIT Alumni Industry Interaction Centre' at the facility. The centre hopes to help fledgling ventures in their market penetration stage. "As alumni we want to enable this interaction," says Suresh Kalpathi, president of the Club and chairman of Kalpathi Investments.

The biggest proof that the IIT-M model is working is perhaps the fact that others are now looking at replicating it. Devang Khakhar, the director of IIT Bombay, says his institution has set in motion plans for a research park. "We have set up a committee to get it going, land has been earmarked within the campus, and talks are on to garner support from industrial stakeholders," he says.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

Related to the topic of Primary Education
Karnataka govt to amend education act
Kannada made must in State Board schools
Bill to make Kannada mandatory subject up to class 10 to be introduced
There seems to be a constant tussle between the judiciary and the Karnataka government on the "mother tongue" issue. From the latest order from the court, what I could figure out was that Karnataka government cannot force any school to include the subject Kannada in its curriculum. The schools can decide whether the language has to be included or not. A worrisome aspect which I foresee is that a large number of student population being ignorant of the state's mother tongue, and having no roots (or social connects) to the state. The immigrant population in cities like Bengaluru have already shunned Kannada for all practical purposes and willing to pay out of their noses for seats in "International Schools" etc. How do other big cities like Mumbai handle similar issues? Is Marathi pretty much unused in Mumbai, and people have started putting it on the back burner?
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Adrija »

So hostels also will face same issue if Mr Achutanandan had sold a lemon. (what a name L O L ... cannot stop thinking about the obvious hindi reference). Maybe there is more to this story.
LokeshC Sir, Achyuta is one of the names for Vishnu...........occurs in the Vishnu Sahasranam and means "unchanging/ constant/ one whom time cannot destroy"

Sorry for OT, back to lurk mode
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

Sachin wrote:Related to the topic of Primary Education
Karnataka govt to amend education act
Kannada made must in State Board schools
Bill to make Kannada mandatory subject up to class 10 to be introduced
There seems to be a constant tussle between the judiciary and the Karnataka government on the "mother tongue" issue. From the latest order from the court, what I could figure out was that Karnataka government cannot force any school to include the subject Kannada in its curriculum. The schools can decide whether the language has to be included or not. A worrisome aspect which I foresee is that a large number of student population being ignorant of the state's mother tongue, and having no roots (or social connects) to the state. The immigrant population in cities like Bengaluru have already shunned Kannada for all practical purposes and willing to pay out of their noses for seats in "International Schools" etc. How do other big cities like Mumbai handle similar issues? Is Marathi pretty much unused in Mumbai, and people have started putting it on the back burner?
From my experience in Blr: Immigrants have difficulty in learning Kannada. But kids are learning at school, as a 2nd or 3rd language. "International Schools" is just Macaulayism. It is the same in all cities of India, and in none of them is there emphasis on any language other than English.

And lets be honest about it. How much do we really learn in schools? In Kerala I meet ppl who say they have studied Hindi till 8th or 10th standard. But cannot formulate even basic sentences. One friend of mine ( Bihari ) grew up in Kolkata and studied Bengali as 2nd language, but he has difficulty keeping up a fluent conversation.

The true problem is English and the macaulayism that comes with it.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

csaurabh wrote:From my experience in Blr: Immigrants have difficulty in learning Kannada. But kids are learning at school, as a 2nd or 3rd language. ...... It is the same in all cities of India, and in none of them is there emphasis on any language other than English.
I did a quick survey amongst my own relatives having kids studying in the various city schools. My observations are that, the schools they send their kids to have an option to choose between Kannada and Hindi. English is mandatory. By the 1st or 2nd standard, the kid (or rather parents) have to decide on which language to choose. With an option given, and the current demographics in Bangalore what is happening is that most people opt for Hindi. Kannada is getting chosen by very less number of kids (or their parents). My understanding is that Karnataka Govt, is trying to ensure that Kannada gets taught in every school (with perhaps choice between Hindi or English). And that is why I again ask, how is this issue handled in Maharashtra and in Tamil Nadu? For example in Mumbai, with a large population of non-Marathi crowd, people can just go for Hindi & English and ignore Marathi. And in Tamil Nadu, migrants (from Hindi speaking state) just go with Hindi & English, again ignoring the local language. Will the state's local (and official) language suffer in the long run?
How much do we really learn in schools? In Kerala I meet ppl who say they have studied Hindi till 8th or 10th standard. But cannot formulate even basic sentences.
And the very same people would be able to speak Marathi, Hindi or any other language once they land up in a state where these languages have to be used. There are lots of Keralites in Mumbai and Northern states who can speak much better Marathi & Hindi, than the folks who have learnt the pidgin-Hindi in school. Which again raises a question - then why not primary education be in the state's official language? Other subjects like English, Hindi, Sanskrit or German all can be picked up at a later date based on the need?
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

Which again raises a question - then why not primary education be in the state's official language? Other subjects like English, Hindi, Sanskrit or German all can be picked up at a later date based on the need?
This is a totally reflexive idea based on one's pet-peeve and regionalism without any thought given to its impact. Do people have fixed 20 year job terms in a given state. What will happen when the parents transfer to another state and the kid will have to now learn the state's new language. It could happen to a kid at any stage between grade 1-12. Having suffered it I would not recommend it for anyone. People who have had the luxury of growing up in one state are usually the ones who come up with these gems or the anti-sickularists who see Macaulay's ghost everywhere. :((
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

Imo this regional medium education thing cannot work without an ecosystem to support it. The current system actively discriminates against non English speaking India. In the long run, this issue will not be solved until we have a national language for India ( hopefully some form of Sanskrit ) and the entire ecosystem built around that ( up to graduate education ). Meanwhile, the best thing to do would be to de-Macaulayise English education- ie. remove Aryan invasion/glorification of Islamics/etc. from history, teach translated Indian literature instead of Shakespeare, put some Indian mathematics, astronomy in science textbooks, etc.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

Bade wrote: People who have had the luxury of growing up in one state are usually the ones who come up with these gems or the anti-sickularists who see Macaulay's ghost everywhere.
Fine sir! So what do you recommend? State languages (especially in South) given a burial and then every one asked to learn Shudh Hindi? :(( , :P . Whines apart, one thing which I feel every state government should do is to ensure that for getting any state government job (or even where the individual has to interact with the common public; eg: Railway Clerks, Bank Clerks etc.), 10th standard level proficiency in the state's official language is a must. Should not be much a problem, because even IAS and IPS officers etc. undergo such trainings from a langauge Munshi.
csaurabh wrote:Meanwhile, the best thing to do would be to de-Macaulayise English education- ie. remove Aryan invasion/glorification of Islamics/etc. from history, teach translated Indian literature instead of Shakespeare, put some Indian mathematics, astronomy in science textbooks, etc.
Agreed. Any way the current system is more of wrote learning.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Adrija »

^^^

what about English + Sanskrit + third language, being implemented uniformly across India

Let each school (rather than the state govt) make its own decision about the third language, in which case people in a non-native state (e.g., Keralites in Delhi can chose to send their children to a Malayali school so as to ensure that they retain their mother tounge/ literature/ culture)

The catch is that both English and Sanskrit should be implemented equally and uniformly (no "English language schools- that only perpetuates the internal language apartheid we have currently in India).

That way:

1. We retain a global connect (with English continuing being taught)
2. As English will be taught across all schools, the current apartheid system (where the elite are masters of English and the "vernacular" are effectively disenfranchised from economic opportunities and upward mobility) will become dismantled
3. Sanskrit can gain ground slowly (over 20 years) as the Indian link language, and hopefully replace English within a generation for internal communication purposes. Also, being closer to the regional languages, this will be complementary to the promotion and interaction of regions
4. Each community can continue to propagate and nurture their mother tongue/ culture in schools they can run themselves through their local culture association


Ah well............good day dreaming
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

Adrija wrote:Let each school (rather than the state govt) make its own decision about the third language, in which case people in a non-native state (e.g., Keralites in Delhi can chose to send their children to a Malayali school so as to ensure that they retain their mother tounge/ literature/ culture)
Agreed. But how can a Malayali school just pop up in say New Delhi? Schools operate for a profit. So if a school finds out that there is no significant gain by teaching Malayalam, then they would not opt for that subject at all. Next would be some Malayali association (or X'ian missionary establishments) starting their own schools, and teaching Malayalam. Taking Karnataka as an example, in cities like Bangalore demographics have changed so much so that many schools don't want to focus on Kannada, because lots of IT/Vity Munnas would skip that school. So here the situation is reversed so much so that, due to demographic changes the state's own official language is not preferred. Karnataka government has been trying force the schools to mend their ways, but looks like they (the schools) themselves don't have much Kannada spirit left :evil: ;).

This is what made me think in the lines of having some form of inducement for a person to learn the official language of the state. Yes, there are lots of jobs in which people are transferable, but at the end of the day they do land up some where and retire. Currently, I don't think such laws exist. Hence you find a passenger in Kerala, facing a railway enquiry clerk who has zero knowledge in Malayalam (and can get away with it too). So states should work on a scheme which says that if the job (be it central or state employment) requires interaction with people in the state, written & speaking proficiency in the state's official language is a must. If people are not willing to do that, they certainly can take up jobs in the private sector. My understanding is that such a law exists only in Banking recruitment - knew some cases in Kerala, who tried to apply for clerical posts in Karnataka based banks. One mandate for them to even appear for the exam was speaking and written communication skills in Kannada.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

A three language formula would have worked fine and uniformly as in English + Sanskrit + Local and would have been fair to all too, but we already have an asymmetric case with one local language being more dominant in many states, aka Hindi or versions of it. The North-east, South and West would lose out as Hindi has official sanction as of now at least for the Central Govt sector.

I am not against state govts requiring that 3rd language be mandatory, except for cases where one can prove previous domicile in another state. This will make life easier for transients in each state. So the formula will look like

English + Hindi + Sanskrit or Any Indian language in Northern states.
English + Hindi + Sanskrit or Local language in all other states.

English will remain as I cannot see Hindi replacing it or for that matter even Sanskrit. The world has moved on. Make sure English is also taught well at govt schools and the medium of instruction has to be uniform or options given so that kids can compete with the ones coming out of elite schools.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

Sachin- I think you are asking the wrong questions..

There is a difference between teaching a language, and education in that language medium.

3rd language is already implemented in many schools in India ( so you would have the class for 2-4 yrs ) . So for example, in Delhi, you can have a 3rd language option as Malayalam. ( this would usually be taught by 1 of the teachers of the school who happened to be a Keralite with some time on her hands ) Of course with the type of education system we have it is questionable what you can learn in 4 years. But that applies to all subjects.

As far as jobs are concerned, I think there is requirement for doctors as well. And most people in customer facing services would pick it up anyway. Your hypothetical railway clerk is probably very rare.

P.S. the dynamics of metro cities is very different from that of 2nd tier/3rd tier towns and villages. We cannot have a one size fits all model.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

Bade wrote:A three language formula would have worked fine and uniformly as in English + Sanskrit + Local and would have been fair to all too, but we already have an asymmetric case with one local language being more dominant in many states, aka Hindi or versions of it. The North-east, South and West would lose out as Hindi has official sanction as of now at least for the Central Govt sector.

I am not against state govts requiring that 3rd language be mandatory, except for cases where one can prove previous domicile in another state. This will make life easier for transients in each state. So the formula will look like

English + Hindi + Sanskrit or Any Indian language in Northern states.
English + Hindi + Sanskrit or Local language in all other states.

English will remain as I cannot see Hindi replacing it or for that matter even Sanskrit. The world has moved on. Make sure English is also taught well at govt schools and the medium of instruction has to be uniform or options given so that kids can compete with the ones coming out of elite schools.
I think you are totally wrong..

To begin with: This is already the 3 language formula as it stands now. And it isn't working.
Hindi project was more or less a complete failure. It needs to be buried because it was conceptually flawed.

English absolutely can be replaced by Sanskrit. It is only a matter of time, will and confidence. Only the macaulayization inside our heads prevents us from seeing that, as well as the fact that the privileged classes of India have built their entire careers on English, which they would loathe to give up.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Sachin wrote:And in Tamil Nadu, migrants (from Hindi speaking state) just go with Hindi & English, again ignoring the local language. Will the state's local (and official) language suffer in the long run?
For the first generation yes but by second generation everyone speaks Tamil IME. All the schools, even english medium other than a few TFTA ones, the conversations are all in Tamil. The key difference is Kollywood. With a powerful entertainment industrial complex Tamil (different from Tamilzh :) ) remains dominant in peoples lives. This is not necessarily a good thing. the modern Tamil as spoken on the street has only a loose connection to classical Tamil. There are many who deplore the 'contamination' of the original language with all manner of borrow words and idioms. English is used in business transactions but once beyond that even doctors and IT/VITY munnas switch to Tamil. English is pretty much the dominant world business language. Hard to see this changing. If anything it becomes more dominant every year that goes by.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

One billion mandarin speakers, another one billion Hindi/Sanskrit speakers, that still leaves out 5 billion people who are not going to learn either Mandarin or Sanskrit/Hindi. So English definitely stays. Chinese are learning English and speaking it better than our Vernacular Language school products. If anything we need to shore up the English language writing and speaking skills in our vernacular medium schools as a short term measure.

Currently there is no 3 language formula in the North, right ? Give them the option to learn another Indian language, which is good for national integration and understanding local cultures when they migrate for jobs etc.

A move to a purely Indian language medium of instruction (different from just learning an additional language) cannot happen anytime soon, before there is enough literature in the medium. Hindi is spoken by a large majority, still are there any non-fiction books written in it even by native speakers. Sanskrit is a far cry for the same role.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by nachiket »

Sachin wrote: And that is why I again ask, how is this issue handled in Maharashtra and in Tamil Nadu? For example in Mumbai, with a large population of non-Marathi crowd, people can just go for Hindi & English and ignore Marathi. And in Tamil Nadu, migrants (from Hindi speaking state) just go with Hindi & English, again ignoring the local language. Will the state's local (and official) language suffer in the long run?

And the very same people would be able to speak Marathi, Hindi or any other language once they land up in a state where these languages have to be used. There are lots of Keralites in Mumbai and Northern states who can speak much better Marathi & Hindi, than the folks who have learnt the pidgin-Hindi in school. Which again raises a question - then why not primary education be in the state's official language? Other subjects like English, Hindi, Sanskrit or German all can be picked up at a later date based on the need?
When I was in school (Eng. medium) in Mumbai we had English and Marathi mandatory from 1st through 10th. Third language starts in 5th and was mandatory Hindi till 7th. From 8th we had a choice of Sanskrit or Hindi or a 50-50 combination of the two. But this was the state board. ICSE and CBSE are a lot more popular these days and I don't think they have the three language requirement.

Besides I knew a few people who weren't native Marathi speakers who, after 10 years of learning Marathi and scoring 85+/100 in 10th couldn't put together a single sentence in the language. God knows how they managed to score so much. I guess it was similar to us scoring 95+/100 in Sanskrit without being able to speak a word.

At the end of the day only speaking the language in daily life makes you learn it. Simply teaching it in school is moot acc. to me.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by ArmenT »

One of my coworkers is from Mumbai and she's from a Marathi family, but she told me she took Sanskrit in high school as a second language. I asked why not Marathi or Hindi and she said something like it was for getting "good marks" in the final exam. Apparently, the Marathi teachers in Maharashtra are uber-language-jingos and they subtract marks for even minor mistakes, whereas Sanskrit teachers are more lenient with their marking. After all that, she freely admits that her Sanskrit knowledge is pretty basic and she only took it for getting "good marks".

This was a revelation for me, as my school had options for Hindi and Tamil (being in TN) and I don't recall anyone in my school taking Hindi simply because they assumed that the Tamil teachers in TN would mark stuff more strictly. By the way, my school had a 3rd language requirement until 8th grade or so and they offered Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada as well. I took Hindi for 2nd language and Tamil for 3rd language, as did many of my friends, who were mainly Tamils. Most Telugu kids took Hindi as 2nd language and Telugu as 3rd language, Malayali kids took Malayali as 3rd language etc. Practically all the kids who took Tamil as their 2nd language took Hindi as their 3rd language option, so they learned enough to read it. In high school, you could take Hindi, Tamil, German or French as your second language. I stayed with Hindi even though I never really used the language much.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by UlanBatori »

A perhaps tangential question. About the absence of Indian institutions from the list of Top Engineering Schools in the Duniya, put out by the Usual Suspects.

After getting past the usual yadayadayada, I want to point out one thing:

The IISc and each of the IITs are just too small, compared to Top institutions.
Their budgets are miniscule in comparison.

Comments?
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by RamaY »

UlanBatori wrote:A perhaps tangential question. About the absence of Indian institutions from the list of Top Engineering Schools in the Duniya, put out by the Usual Suspects.

After getting past the usual yadayadayada, I want to point out one thing:

The IISc and each of the IITs are just too small, compared to Top institutions.
Their budgets are miniscule in comparison.

Comments?
Can & do Indian Universities have Endowments?

Al-Hawad has $34B fund :shock: @15% ROR, the univ gets $4.5B income, can pay for 45,000 students at $100K per student/yr.
Jack Meyer managed HMC from 1990 to September 30, 2005, beginning with an endowment worth $4.8 billion and ending with a value of $25.9 billion (including new contributions). During the last decade of his tenure, the endowment earned an annualized return of 15.9%
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by UlanBatori »

Donations to Endowments come from successful alumni - provided that they can see some quid pro quo that the Tax Ppl won't scream about. As you point out above, HahVahd can afford to operate without charging a penny in fees - but that would devalue the degree and be seen to let in all sorts of riffraff. They have to keep the Shekhs and Sonias and BigBanias of the Duniya feeling that their Bete/Betis are getting a great deal at $80K/yr or whatever they charge.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by csaurabh »

ArmenT wrote:One of my coworkers is from Mumbai and she's from a Marathi family, but she told me she took Sanskrit in high school as a second language. I asked why not Marathi or Hindi and she said something like it was for getting "good marks" in the final exam. Apparently, the Marathi teachers in Maharashtra are uber-language-jingos and they subtract marks for even minor mistakes, whereas Sanskrit teachers are more lenient with their marking. After all that, she freely admits that her Sanskrit knowledge is pretty basic and she only took it for getting "good marks".
This nonsense is because we have a tendency to teach everything in a 'mugging style', and make everything about fetching marks, rather than actually learning anything.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by RamaY »

Looks like Endowments are accepted in India too. For example: http://materials.iisc.ernet.in/~www/awards/manish/

How about we initiate a fund for some "Bharat Rakshak chair for Indian Strategic Studies Research" or something like that in some esteemed university? This forum can form a revolving committee that picks up a topic every year.

Assuming this involves a RS 120,000 annual scholarship we would need a RS 15Lakh core fund (@8% interest).
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

If you have 3-5 crores to give, walk up to the Dean's office in the Madrassah in Adyar, and you can get a chaired professorship started.

This madrassah hoped to collect a pidly $36 Million USD from alumni, and after almost a decade has managed much less than 10% of the target.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by RamaY »

Bade wrote:If you have 3-5 crores to give, walk up to the Dean's office in the Madrassah in Adyar, and you can get a chaired professorship started.

This madrassah hoped to collect a pidly $36 Million USD from alumni, and after almost a decade has managed much less than 10% of the target.
Don't have that much Saar :(

I will do a term policy now :mrgreen: and write a will that a $0.5M should go to setup a chair.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by UlanBatori »

Why would (most) alumni donate to that?
a) It is a 400% guvrmand institution.
b) The alumni association is organized in a biss-boor manner as I hear from certain alums: very simply, they don't keep records, they organize events as if they were intended for local Chennai rejidants onlee (or their private list of chamcha Chennai goon gangs, just like in hostel days) and the rest hear about the events after they are over - or maybe a week before.
c) They don't give a pakistan.

One might as well convert the dolahs into rupees and pour them down the pakistan, for all the "bang 4 da buck" that they can hope to get.

And one probably cannot even get a tax break on Indian taxes from it, because the alum assoc probably has not registered to get 80G or whatever it is on Indian tax phorm Saral Eye-Tea-2. It seems to be run by one poor guy who hand-writes letters once in a while. This is a world-beating institution?

Just saw RamaY's grand intention to remember them in Will etc. Why not do far better? Make a pledge of $5B - at $1 per year. :)

Much smarter IMO to give a few rupees to nbd elementary school to buy clothes for poor kids. Or to a place of worship. Or an orphanage. At least then one can get comfort that something useful was done.

Sometime back the EyeEyeTee See used alum $$ to buy computers. Think about that for a microsecond. It is NOT the job of alums to buy computers for the Guvrmand's premier technological institution. The computers became obsolete in 6 mo. It was like pouring $$ down the drain.

Endowment is the way to go, IMO, but do u have any confidence that the endowment will GROW, rather than be like a Holy Boat? The Endowment only works if, over time, you get to the point where stock market gains >>> annual contributions and expenditures. THAT is the Hahvahd modal.

JFYI, my Evil 6th Coujin tried to set that model up to fund children of those who had died fighting the Commie-Pakis. We used IDRF to keep the money and make it grow, with their matching contributions. That was what got us dragged into the whole Sabrang Commie-Paki Report and jollies.

What became of that effort? Let me tell you, from the deep access of UBCNews to Class-e-Phyed khabar.

"We" collected some $80K, IIRC. In $5, $2, $1, $1000, some $10,000 contributions. It was heart-rending to see the regular $1 come in monthly from some dedicated souls. Nothing was wasted. IDRF matched it 1:1 as long as they could. But the "keep and grow and pay out from earnings" model was lost in the jollies that IDRF had to fight, to survive. Instead, they got others to contribute, who had other intentions. They built schools in J&K, to do exactly what we intended: house, feed, educate children of martyred ppl - and others.

They then built an organization in Assam/ NE to replicate the model. This time it was intended to educate mainly girls. Mainstream education, opportunities to rise. Last I heard, these were going strong. IOW, the $80K that 'we' raised, collected over $240K and that went into these organizations, now those organizations seem to be standing on their own feet.

Anyway, my Evil 6th coujin was happy to get out successfully from that, but took the 'earnings' based model elsewhere. Just started putting their own hard-earned family pennies into a Charitable Fund (Yoo Ess Tax-Free) at a Yoo Ess investment place. Last I heard it was 'working' sort of OK: Annual growth from investment was fairly decent, and they are able to send donations to IDRF and others from that fund every year without depleting the fund. The model does work, even without the generous matching etc.

But who at IITC is going to manage these things like that Harvard dude (who I bet was paid handsomely for it)? Getting 10-15% on $$$B year after year, is no joke. If you invest in anything that can get a 15% return, you can also lose 100%.
Last edited by UlanBatori on 27 Mar 2015 07:21, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by UlanBatori »

Finally, exactly what does a Chair buy you as a generous and altruistic donor? I would like to hear the answer to that.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

I hear that you can get your name chiselled to it for sure. Other tangibles I dunno. I am not in that league of players. I would hazard a guess that with >3-5 crores bagful you will get a full hearing and perhaps can set some conditions on how the money or interest accrued can be used. Since none of the alumni who makes zillions in wall street is gonna spare free time to advise or do what the hadvard guy did to have 15% RoI each year, the money will go into some fixed deposit type low yield account only.

$10 contributions can also be done regularly if you visit their web-page that google will throw up. If one has no faith in GoI institutes, then what can I say.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by UlanBatori »

Name chiselled is fine. That costs $2M at most Yoo Ess universities, may be a lot cheaper at Indian ones. But what does it get you? If it was I, I would not want my name to be chiseled to anything in the post-Ulan Batori era. Maybe get a Chair established with the name of someone else, fine.

NO self-respecting university will agree to this:
perhaps can set some conditions on how the money or interest accrued can be used.
Well.. b4 u write cheque maybe, as in what things it can fund, but never WHO the university gives the Chair to. So your Chair in Strategic Studies will probably be occupied by a Well-Known Name From JNU, Expert in South Asia Strategic Studies. Maybe straight from Jinnah U, LaHore.

This is what happened to various efforts to set up Chairs in Yindooijm at various big-naam AmirKhan universities. Paid for a lot of commie-pakis.

Actually NO, I do not have faith in how Govt. institutions spend (what used to be my) money. All you will buy is a lot of arrogance.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Bade »

I agree with the sentiment of independence of any educational institute in their decisions on how to spend the resources, just as to the same sentiment of individuals who think they earned their money. Once parted the equations change, and only faith will help in feeling good about the money which is not with the donor anymore.
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by RamaY »

Batori mahasaya,

I don't have the luxury to be cynical or apathetic. I love Bharat and owe it everything I have. But that is emotional.

I was responding to the price tag Badeji mentioned. Perhaps this can be a good modal. If concerned citizens write wills where a % of their $m term life insurances go to alumni funds. If few thousand NRIs do that there is a chance that indian univs get to see $b funds after 20-30-50 Yrs. We are too selfish to give our own money anyways :mrgreen:

I understand what you are saying. Perhaps I will try to setup a family fund in Desh and donate the interest to a research student.

I do donate to the other things you mentioned. But doing it for higher education/research has its own impact, IMHO.

Thanks for the ideas... Time for action :D
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Re: Indian Education System

Post by Sachin »

Karnataka plans to use every single way it has to make Kannada education pretty much mandatory.
Bengaluru: Bills introduced to make Kannada compulsory in school
RTE Amendment Bill Tabled
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