By Vinay
“The time has come to create a second wave of institution building and of excellence in the fields of education, research and capability building”
– Dr. Manamohan Singh (Prime Minister of India)
Once upon a time, may be some 1500 years ago, more foreign people visited India in search of Knowledge and Wisdom than any other country. They came in hordes for no other part of the world could boast of centers of excellence as holy as Nalanda and Taxila. It is from these universities that the wisdom and the great religion found its way far and wide and spiritually conquered China, Japan and many other nations.
Once upon a time, may be some 60 years ago, when we got independence, Nehru, the architect of modern India proudly said that the Big dams that were built at that time were temples of modern India. My generation would not have suffered if Nehru had built hundred or more universities at that time with the same enthusiasm. Today India has more number of PSUs (Public Sector Units) and dams than there are universities. And all universities are as sick as sickest PSU we have today.
Japan with a population of 127 million has 726 universities; Germany has 350 universities for its 82 million people; United Kingdom has 125 universities for population as big as that of Karnataka’s; United States of America has 2,446 universities for its 300 million people. China in last decade alone has built more than 1000 universities.
India with 1.1 billion people has around 350 universities; one fourth of them were built before Independence.
This clearly explains the priority our elected heads of the government gave to education in India. We neither built large number of universities nor maintained the sanctity of those which were built. A few IITs and IIMs that were built faithfully catered to the need of foreign countries until now. As told by our PM it is high time now that we became pragmatic and work towards strengthening our education system.
Once Einstein joked that, “it is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry”.
When Narayanmurthy, C.N.R.Rao, TCS’s Ramadorai quipped that only 20 to 30 percent of all engineers graduated in India every year are eligible for working in private companies they were reiterating the bitter truth. Our universities have become obsolete in their methods of imparting knowledge. Their archaic academic curriculum is out of sync with modern needs. Politicization of campus has blotted out the intellectual aura that was once the hallmark of few good universities. Criminal activities, ugly romance, drug trafficking and entertainment have become the norm of university campuses in India. Add to this rampant corruption in each department of the Universities.
The universities which once provided India with great political, business leaders and helped flourish dynamic democracy during its infancy unfortunately have become stagnant in this direction.
Higher Education in India.
We have 17,700 hundred under-graduate colleges affiliated to 131 Universities. That is on an average 135 colleges for each university. The Bangalore University has more the 400 colleges affiliated to it, which makes it one of the worst managed universities in the world. when I graduated it took 7 months to get final year marks card, one year to get my TC (Transfer Certificate) and one and half years to claim my Convocation certificate.
The enrollment rate for people between the age group of 18-24 in India is only 7% , less than half of the Asia’s average rate.
No Indian University figures in the top hundred Universities list of the world.
In 1990 India produced 11,563 research papers to that of China’s 6,991 and in 2005 India produced 25, 227 papers to that China’s 72,632 in International journals. It clearly shows downward trend of research activities in our universities.
The infrastructure of our universities is the main drawback. Laboratories, libraries and hostels are badly managed and upgraded. Bangalore University’s library resembles a museum from outside and I won’t blame you if you mistake it for an ancient excavation site when you enter inside it. Every year government allocates huge sum to these universities and 90 percent of it goes to salaries and other non-plan expenditures. Less than 10 percent goes to education and infrastructure purposes.
Solution
On 13th June, 2005 Government of India constituted a high level advisory body known as National Knowledge Commission (NKC) to advise the PM about the state of education in India and measures needed to reform this sector. It was headed by Sam Pitroda and submitted its report in November 2007.
NKC has recommended setting up of 1500 universities by 2015 so that gross enrollment ratio increases to 15 percent. It has also called for establishing an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE) to monitor the quality of overall higher education in India.
Its report if implemented can help boost education sector in India. Governments should make a sustained and sincere effort towards this. We are moving towards an era which would be defined by the parameters of knowledge and wisdom. Let’s hope at least our politicians wake up now and wisdom prevails before it’s too late.
7 Comments
April 7, 2008 at 5:30 pm
My husband is from Nepal; his father studied in Varanasi. I have been to Nepal, and I am familiar with the culture and educational system. India and Nepal are similar in some ways. Brahmin Hindus (like my husband’s family) are closer to India in terms of culture than other people in Nepal’s population.
From what I know from my classes on India and from my husband and his father:
India might not have as many academic institutions as other countries that are smaller in population; however, the quality of higher education is still good.
The U.S. has a lot of universities, but I would not say that everyone receives a quality education.
Nice thoughts and site though–
http://prodosi.wordpress.com/
PS I think India really needed those dams. Also, I would rather study in a museum library than a cookie-cutter American box. But that is just my humble opinion on the matter.
April 7, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I welcome your opinions.
1)We need more universities because we are more in number and present number of universities is too less.
2) Our university libraries have a very good collection of books, but they are all in mess. A library must be conducive for serious study.
3) Of course dams were needed, but initial five year plans did not focus much on education which would have helped India perform much better now. Our literacy rate is still at 66%, too less to boast of a knowledge economy.
4) Quality may be good compared to foreign universities but it has come down compared to its own in the past.
Hope you visit again and leave your valuable comments.
April 8, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I have walked from a very small village to a Topmost* Institute of India and my father is a primary school teacher .
yes there is a lack of universities and institutes for education but one most important fact is the quality of education is absent,
** lack of quality in education
** there are very few teachers
** teacher’s knowledge is very insufficient.
** govt teachers are busy with many useless activities (which is ordered by their boss)
** pvt teachers are making money with tuitions. I have seen my places where there tuitions teachers are not having proper knowledge of subject even,
** resources to student community is is very poor
** not having a internet is major hurdle
** student fight with “bad competitions”
** student do not have any student-ship ethics , they just want marks in the subject and they study for jobs
** there is no creativity in student, our top class student are hard-worker but not innovative,, they are just learning C++ , computers and new technology which the overseas technological persons producing, but they are not capable enough to produce new technology.
** most weak part in education in primary education where we are somehow unable to produce good and able citizen ,
** This is not a problem of student ,,, our whole system is responsible for it.
** There is a need to revolution in education which only can be done by student community itself.
April 9, 2008 at 8:44 am
Well written article. It will be great if you can also write in SiliconIndia as I am a member of SiliconIndia, I am sure that most of the members will like reading it. http://www.siliconindia.com/register.php?id=T49I1Fh5
April 9, 2008 at 8:49 am
Well written article. This is a good piece of information; it will be great if more such articles can also be published in SiliconIndia, as I am a member of SiliconIndia.com, I am sure that such information will be useful for most of the members. http://www.siliconindia.com/register.php?id=T49I1Fh5
April 10, 2008 at 2:19 am
Hi, Vinay,
About the dams, my husband hates them because the fix India but flood Nepal. I think you both agree on not liking the dams.
I was surprised that there are so few books available when I went to Nepal. I read hundreds of pages every single day. Internet connections are also spotty–power outages.
I can understand what you mean by unorganized texts–they should be made easily available. I rather like the old buildings though.
I always feel frustrated when I think of India. Instead of the U.S. promoting China, the U.S. should have promoted India–it has a much better human rights record–despite its “issues”. And–it is a Republic unlike the Green (Commerce) yet Red (Communist) China.
I would much rather spend my money on Indian goods than Chinese goods. I buy Indian cotton wash cloths–they last forever.
Anyway–I like your blog a lot.
Take Care.
**I do have one Chinese preference though:
If I have to be stranded in an airport, I would rather be in Hong Kong than in India!
April 29, 2008 at 11:26 am
I welcome ur comments
I completely agree with ur opinion.
India in order to become a developed nation by 2020 and a knowledge super power by 2015. we need higher educated people who are skilled and who can drive our economy forward.
Indian universties should concentrate more on providing quality education which is comparable to that of international standards.
when india can provide skilled people to the outside world then we can transfer our country from a developing nation to a developed nation very easily and quickly.
Development of Universities is the most iimportant step the government should adress very urgently.