As a sequel to my previous blog, I thought of throwing some light on the Quality of Education in India. This blog focuses primarily on the under-graduate and post-graduate education in India. For those who have not read my previous blog, I discussed about the benefits of education focusing primarily on what a professional education could give an Indian Citizen. Now, onwards to the new topic…

We all know that, in Tamil nadu alone, we know we have around 350 engineering colleges. But what’s the quality of the engineers coming out of these colleges? Apart from the top 10 colleges, like Anna University, Guindy, PSG Tech, Coimbatore, how many of the college provide their students with good professors? Though a lot of colleges, like my own alma mater, Amrita, have a very good infrastructure, computer facilities, and the rest; they lack what is in fact needed by a student. A good professor. This blog was the outcome of my thoughts when I just wondered why we don’t get a good professor.

This country was the one that had a very famous university called the Nalanda University in early BCs. We gave the world the number “Zero” without which a lot of inventions so far would have been rendered useless. We were the first to work on Logistics; we were the first to work on astronomy etc., etc. When the ancient India had lot many researchers, why not now? Nalanda University attracted a lot of foreigners to study in India. India was considered the best place to study and do research. But now, things have changed a lot. It’s of no use blaming the British rule. A lot of countries that were under British rule have developed well ahead of us… Japan, though not under British rule, has wealth equal to half of US with around half of its population and virtually no resources. This country, as you might know, was N-bombed, twice by the United States during the World War II. Singapore, a very small city-state grew from an under-developed country to one of the most prosperous countries in the world within around 30 years of Independence, again with virtually no natural resources. How did these countries managed to grow so fast? Why haven’t India grown like these countries? It’s the fact that, they value professional education more than anything else. There is no point in blaming British as, the way they looted India, they looted every other country. We have a lot of natural resources like, Oil in Mumbai, a lot of harbor ports around the country, gold, and many others. We are the fourth richest country in the world, only next to United States, China and Japan. But still India is considered a low-income country by World Bank. Where is all our money going? Why is it that we are not interested in building good universities and allocating funds to Education? Again, no point blaming Pakistan… Is it because we have a enemy country called Pakistan, we are unable to allocate funds to Education? What I think is that, the politicians who make up the Indian Government are not very much learned. They may know to read and write. But they have not understood the value of a professional education. They have not understood what a professional education (by the word I mean not only engineering, but also law/medicine and others) could give its Citizens.

In many of the colleges I mentioned above, especially those Tier II colleges, teachers are predominantly previous year passed outs, who settle in a lecturer job when they don’t get any other (nicely paying) work. The value for research has gone down drastically. Government funding is very less or practically none for academic research. As a result, teachers are not paid well in our country. In this 21^st century, there is no point in saying that, teaching is a noble profession and that teachers/professors who choose to start their career as teachers should have a mindset that money is not as important as peace of mind. Ok, agreed. But what keeps you happy at the end is money in your life than the fact that you are a teacher. A noble profession should also pay noble salary. Moreover, to keep a professor engaged in some sort of research, there should be money. Students’ fees alone can’t provide the necessary money. Salaries of teachers in this country are abysmally low that professors are seen as a class of people who are socially lower than the totally useless, “so-called” software engineering profession. In a developed country for example, the United States, the starting salary of a professor in a Tier III college is around 3 times the salary of a Microsoft employee. Professors in MIT and the like colleges are paid like CEOs that their social respect is way higher than Software Engineers. In Singapore, the entry level salary of a Professor is somewhere like, 4 times. This is the case with Hong Kong, Japan, Australia or England. (The entry requirements are also very tough though. Minimum of a PhD is required for teaching in an Engineering college, let alone becoming a Dean.) To everyone’s surprise, the fees charged by these colleges are not very high! May be somewhere around 2-3 times the cost of Indian Education? These countries also have more professors per 100 students than that in India. How do they get this extra money from? The answer is Government funding. US allocates more than 22% of its GDP to education and academic oriented research, where as in India it’s less that 2%. A lot 11 times lesser in percentage, more than 100 times less in terms of actual money and finally if we take our population into consideration, which is over 3 times that of US, we have around 1/300^th of funding available per capita when compared to an American. Or put in other words, an American professor gets around 300 times more money allocated by Government for academic research, than an Indian professor. We have a lot of talents, but it’s all lost due to lack of money. It’s a pity that in a country that’s so rich in terms of GDP, professors still enjoy a lifestyle that’s not even as par as the software engineers who make life by begging and cringing American companies for projects. As such, the saying, An idle mind is a devils’ workshop, applies precisely to the professors in India. As a result of all these, students do not have a reverence for their professors. Even in the Indian Cricket team, the senior members of the team wanted their “Guru” Greg Chappell, to listen to their words!!! Many people opt for other careers than teaching, and the best of the students end up in Software companies, that beg Americans for a living and the useless students of the lot, end up becoming lecturers. The students, who learn from them, learn even lesser than them, creating a negative feedback loop, which had spoilt the quality of education in this country so far. The only way to correct all these, is persuade the meritorious students to choose academia as a career over the infamous Software engineering profession aka, begging. But that can only happen when academic career is well funded and salary levels of teachers are way too higher than other profession. Hope that happens soon, making India a well sought of country for education and not for outsourcing. The way it was in the past.

We all are aware of the fact that India is all geared up to educate its citizens by all means. But how many of you agree with this? How many of us are really benefitted by this? What is the meaning of education to the Government? How is the Government going to see to it that the education system is democratic? Democratic, by the word, I mean education that not reserved based on caste. Let’s tackle this issue one by one.

Firstly, the Government, IMHO, is thinking that, if everyone knows to read/write and sign their name, then country is literate. With this intention, we aren’t going to reach great heights. I’ve points to justify. Firstly, people should be educated to know that, “Known is a drop, unknown is an ocean”. The education mission launched by Government is more like, Ok, if you know to sign your name, we agree that you are literate. The mentality of people after attending a few, probably night classes becomes that, Yes, I’ve reached the pinnacle, now what? taunt others…(those who are still illiterate) Due to their shallow knowledge, they are still not capable of understanding some of the realities.

Take for example, the bandth and bus burning activities, that happens during any riot. If people are educated, they will realize that, Oh, it’s our bus, we should not spoil it. People understand that vandalizing a public property is as good as vandalizing our own property. Next comes cleanliness. Have you ever come across, a software engineer (so-called… I’ll, may be explained why I used this word “so-called” later in another blog…), or any professional, urinating in public? Or involving in vandalism or bus burning activities? There have been ample number of blogs that claim that, we Indians throw the litter in garbage bins when we are elsewhere in any country, but when we are back in India, we start littering the streets. Do you believe this? Atleast, I don’t… Not even to the faintest extent… Some people claim it’s the lack of garbage bins. Though it’s true to one extent, I would say that it’s the education that plays a very important role here.

I’ve not seen a software company in India that is so badly littered like one of the few roads in Bangalore. It’s not because, we Indians start looking at garbage cans when we are inside office. It’s not that they consciously search for a garbage bin to throw their cigarette butt. It’s not because the whole environment is clean and they don’t like polluting it. It’s not that because the company has lot of money to appoint some maid to clean up the environment. It’s because, a vast majority of people using those environment are educated, matured and cultured. They have learnt the effect of pollution some day in the past and somehow sub consciously knows that it’s not wise to throw a cigarette butt on the road, not to urinate anywhere they like. With all these, I would assert that, If the Government give us neat roads like those inside the software companies, and educate all Indians, we’ll all naturally keep them clean and green. Now don’t tell me we are the part of Government. It doesn’t always happen that way. We vote and nearly everyone is corrupt. Why? Every country which is developed now had suffered from corruption in the past. It again can be eradicated only through good education. Previously, may be in our parent’s generation, when you go to a bank for taking a loan, the officers do every job and wait for you to give “something” to move the final paper and sanction the loan. Is it happening that way now in, say HDFC or HSBC or ICICI? Definitely not. Why? It’s all nothing but maturity of the people. The managers sitting there feel ashamed of getting bribe. They consider it equivalent to begging. What changed these people’s minds? It’s nothing but good education. Good education is the only way to improve the quality of life of an Indian.

But is that education section in India well set to change our next generation Indians? I fear not. The education system is severely biased based on caste and as a result, democracy and secularism is rendered meaningless here. If the real intention of the Government is to help the needy, allocate funds for them right from the foundation. Let all the needy (not the low caste people, but the poor and below poverty line people), be granted free education to any school of his/her choice. When a lot of people (atleast in the professional/educated circle) have forgotten the word caste, why bring it up again through this way? Or even if the Government wants to uplift the deprived sect of people, let it give scholarships to them. Something like, from now on, every OBC, will be offered 75% of scholarship if he gets admitted into a B-School. That’ll, in fact, motivate everyone to compete for a seat. Reservations on the other hand lets people take things for granted. They start feeling blasé that, “Hmm anyway, I’ll get a seat even if I get low marks… Why should I toil all day long?” May be this could happen when all the politicians are educated.L Atleast in our next generation, everyone should be well educated, not just educated. Just education, doesn’t seem to work… Let’s hope for a change…

Mugunth