Broad questions for education in India.

Ken Robinson, the renowned education reformist, in his talk at TED, emphasises on three aspects of the failing system of education, viz.,  education inflation, educating out of creativity and failure in educating for the future.

Inflation? Yes. Inflated expectation by the society, industry, institutions, teachers, parents and even the student.  Yes. Our schools are killing our creativity. And, in his speech, he clearly remarks about how students who begin their education this year will retire in the year 2070, we do not know how the world will be 5 years hence, how then are our educational institutions preparing these children to live successfully in the year 2070.

There are two reasons on why we cannot dispute the fact there is something called an education inflation. 

1) There are more qualified people than there are jobs. Hence, industry picks either the best or even gets audacious to pick from the "over-qualified" candidates.

2) To make up for a lack of interest, investment and infrastructure required by the industry to train their own team of specialized workers, they instead look for 'Ready-made' employees and  keep raising the qualification requirements. This results in a industry-wide inflation of hiring over qualified people. 

The competition among institutions - even systems of education -  has led to a compression of what can be crammed into the little impressionable minds. We have created a system that meets only the economic imperative of the world.  

Hence, we are in a hurry to push as much information as possible into the young minds. We are putting into the young minds based on what best they can absorb regardless for their interest. Thereby creating a system that is eager to label a whole lot of students as 'uneducationable'. A system that marginalizes them and deems them more fit for so called menial jobs. 

In their competition to show that their institution is the best, the institutes themselves take only the best and employ a filtering system. Creating a privilege system rather than a educating system. 

Ideal University:

An university should be built with the needs of the society in mind and not cater to meet the demands of the economy alone. We are not creating units out of an assembly-line and hence our education system should be able to cater to the "uniqueness" of every student. It must admit every student who applies and gives them the education that interests them. Each university should cover the whole gamut of education from vocational, arts, science, management, law, commerce, economics, history, medical. We have to expand on traditional vocations (which were designed to fulfill an Industrial age demand) and create specialized vocations suited to this time.

With this as the main goal, our universities should move towards models such as below:

The non-profit Model:

Education can and never should be for-profit. But still, why is education so costly? If an institution is run by a public trust, only 50% of the cost of running the institution should be collected by the university as fee. 25% should be through endowments. 25% should be through public or government funds. Can there be a cross-subsidy model? All effort should be targeted to make education cheaper, without compromising on quality. 

Can there be a separate Education Fund of the government which will be paid into by each corporate to fulfill its CSR obligations which can be then used to fund education. 

Self-sustainable model Vs. Non-profit model:

A good institution has to be self-sustainable. But can an institution be made truly self-sustainable with a condition of acting as not for profit. If a group of professors and students work and create a patent using the resources of the institution, then, the royalties of the institution can make it self-sustainable. But under the law they cannot earn profits as it would make them lose their non-profit status. Can any institution guarantee a system where the royalties are just enough so that they do not create a profit?  Because of this, there is a counter intuitive movement in the market that has not given any incentive to institutes to do more research? Leading to the current situation where institutions are not interested in doing any path breaking research. Even in the few institutions that conduct researches, they have shifted to just teach how to do research without doing any research. Duh! 

So, what is our education system doing - Educating the youth or Creating machines out of humans?

The prerogative vs responsibility

When it comes to admission, these institutions unilaterally hold the prerogative to choose their wards. But when it comes to delivery, include a 3 pronged approach of Institution, Student and Parent. Excuse me! Dear Institutions. Please think. Think hard and introspect. What is your role?

Is your role to choose the best and give them tools to clear exams? 

Can you ever think of yourselves as an institution that provides Knowledge & Education? How are you involving the parent and the student in a consultative, facilitation process of providing them with the tools to learn to the best of their abilities.

Can we really counsel and bring about a change in individual goals and objectives. Can you make that reluctant student(who comes to school because it is a social obligation) to an enthusiastic student (who seeks knowledge because he sees it as enlightening, empowering & life saving) ?

The creative talent of the candidates is never tested. Our education system has become demotivating and retrograde that the whole of purpose of education has been defeated.

Testing for Knowledge

The whole system is geared to give enough information and training on how to beat exams which defeats the very purpose of examinations. The purpose of examination is to provide a mechanism to evaluate how much a student has grasped the teaching.

But today, that purpose has been defeated and the student is given training on how to beat the exam, even giving them a list of questions that will be asked. How stupid can the system get. Why, because it is ultimately the reputation of the teacher and the institution and these exams reflect on their ability to give knowledge.

Teachers form an integral part of the education system. On one side, the system is down in the dumps while on the other, the spirit of the system - the teachers who need to stimulate the thinking capacity are themselves in a bad shape.

Pecking order

As soon as a batch of students graduates, the high performers are picked up by the industry and given fancy salaries and employed. The rest, have no choice but to get themselves better qualified and go for higher education. There too upon graduation, the best get picked by the industry. Of the residual people, some of them go for higher academics and end up choosing teaching. Then having some time in their hands, and to make some extra money, start doing research, publish meaningless papers and as academicians fail miserably in either providing a good education to their students or even motivating them to strive for excellence. There are even those after higher education  who do not find employment, who finally end up in a profession that was not even their primary field of knowledge. 

We really need to tap the potential of the bright candidates in reviving the teaching professions! We need Profs who can act as role models and kindle interest in the young minds.

How many Graduates (in each stream) should a nation produce? 

While no field has a dearth of scope, we still have to ask this question? Do we need scores and scores of engineers graduating every year making unemployment plausible? We need to promote all fields equally and have regulations in place to prevent mushrooming of deemed universities that see an opportunity to make a business proposition out of a demand for a particular stream of education.

Is unemployment a problem of plenty or a problem of not planning? Has there been any scientific statistical analysis on the requirements in the market for each specialized stream of education for every stream of education? This has to be done on a priority basis. This should be the guiding principle on which UGC and others allot seats in institutions and allow established of deemed universities.

Of course not everyone who joins the course clears the course in flying colors, the pass percentage can also be given a weight-age to arrive at a total 'employable' graduates from a particular stream. Secondly, what happens the next year, how many new jobs will be created for the same stream and what will be the year-on-year requirement needs to be studied.

What will be the growth prospect of a person who joins employment. This will also help the institutes to invest properly in catering to the market demands and also help choose the right stream based on their interests. Students should be allowed to explore various streams instead of branding a few streams as more employable than the rest.

Government Employment:

How many 'economists' are employed by the government. How many graduates from Commerce, History, Economics, are employed in their core competency in each government department. Doesn't each Government department need specialists? There are at least 2500 ULBs and over 10,000 government offices that will each require one or more of the specialists. Even a chartered accountant, Statisticians. What about MBAs coming in as key administrators. Can we think of employing specialists  and more specialists. How many geologists are employed by the water authorities. Yes they are employed in Mining departments, but why not in water management? The Govt recruitment process needs an immediate revamp. There is no rational behind how the skills of the candidates are mapped to the job profile. Govt hires in masses and deputes in masses diluting the quality of the both Govt institution and the Individual's knowledge.


In summary, the education system should work towards imparting quality knowledge and stimulating the creative talent of the youth by reviewing the curriculum and evaluation procedure. Funding for research and academics in the country needs attention wherein the brightest in every field is wooed.