In India, a large chunk of students post-matriculation do not
give a well balanced thought before choosing their preferred stream of study for their intermediate. The
due thought that is to be given before choosing any subject as the preferred
one for further study is absent. It is tempting for someone who is looking from
outside and not having any prior knowledge of the prevalent system to think
that it is a good sign to conclude that the students are not confused about
what to do next. But it is far from being true.
Let me backtrack a little bit into the pre-independence
scenario to understand the problem in the education sector. Ours was a colonial
past. The Britishers had their own agenda and stake in running the country the
way they did. They always tried to maximize their output from India which was a
huge asset for them. It is said that the industrial revolution in England could
not have been possible without the contribution from their most prized colony
India. The good quality raw materials, cheap labour, the ills of the social
structure and illiteracy in the Indian society all contributed to the
prosperity of Britain and degradation of India. One of the intended objectives
of the British administrators in India was to educate the Indians to become
loyal clerks of the British administration. The education system was designed
to serve this purpose. This explains why higher education was not paid much
attention. Still, people, mostly from the elite section, found their way to
educate themselves in ways and streams that contradicted the intentions of the
Britishers. This was a necessity too for changing the fate of India. The
British administration was headed by the Viceroy who was accountable to the
British Parliament. The Parliamentary government was based on the system of
representative democracy. This meant that the British administration in India
was to be governed by the laws made by the Legislative assemblies in India,
which were formed in line with the political structure of the British
Parliament. For the Indians, this meant that knowledge of legal matters was
necessary to question the British administration, file petitions or register a
demand with the administration. Hence, lawyers played a major role in the
independence struggle against the British government.
Due to the presence of the educated class and the technology
of print, people had started to taste the flavour of rationality and
nationalism that was gaining popularity in the world during the 19th
and the 20th century. Be it Arts, Commerce or Science, the 20th
century redefined everything and therefore their purpose of study too. Now,
people were not untouched by the news of scientific inventions anywhere in the
world nor they were ignorant of the political and economic transitions that
many countries were undergoing. The result was the emergence of integrated voices
all around the world demanding for freedom from colonial rule and the right to
choose for the way people want to govern themselves.
We became an independent state with a vision that India
should also benefit from the technological advancements of the 20th
century. For this, the need was felt for educating the Indians for the needs of
the upcoming industries and infrastructural developments that were planned for
the country. It is from here that people started re-orienting their thought
about what is a good career and engineering was seen as a great prospect.
Another problem that India faced was the high mortality rate
and extreme poverty. This demanded a pool of well qualified medical
professionals within the country leading to the desire of pursuing a medical
degree among the youth. This explains the exponential growth in the number of
engineers and doctors that the country has produced over the years. This is a
good outcome for our country and is a great demographic dividend provided the
skills imparted are relevant and the learning outcomes are good.
But with independence, we inherited the administrative
machinery of the colonial state. The education system was not an exception. It
retained the basic structure with some isolated, non-synchronized efforts to
bring about some advancement in the infrastructure and a change in the societal
mindset about what should one pursue to land up in a respectable job. The world
saw many disruptive changes in the technological, political, economic and
social arena in the 20th and 21st century but the
education system had been altered in isolated bits and pieces only. It needed
an overhaul in terms of curriculum, assessment and infrastructure to be
relevant for today’s needs but the system has been retained which is
responsible for creating a huge pool of unemployed educated youth.
To give some statistics related to this situation which our
country is in, the Skills India report says that 57% of the engineering
graduates are unemployable. This compels the companies those seek to hire these
graduates to retrain them and then employ them. This retraining that they give
is not an on-the job-training but actual retraining which emphasizes the
irrelevance of the curriculum for the industries. Another study says that 60%
engineering graduates end up in doing a job that does not even require an
engineering degree in the first place. This emphasizes the fact that the
economy is not able to generate enough jobs for the educated youth and
unemployment is engulfing the nation.
There are many more flaws in the Indian education system. As
an example, let me illustrate the status of students who pursue graduation in
basic sciences which include mathematics too. Basic sciences focus on the
theoretical and experimental aspects of science that may or may not have an
immediate effect on the technological front. Basic sciences need not cater
immediately to the technological needs of the time. There are numerous examples
of such inventions and discoveries of basic sciences, which did not have
immediate application as a technology. The invention of lasers is such an
example. The theoretical understanding of the ‘lasing’ process was discovered
as early as 1917 by Einstein but it took 2-3 decades more to build a laser and
it was even later that it could be so well fabricated that it could be used in
some applications. Nowadays, lasers find applications ranging from being a
barcode reader in a grocery store to being a surgical instrument in the LASIK
surgery for refractive errors in the eyes. Another example of the applications
of the research in basic sciences is the use of old mathematical tools such as
Fourier Transform in signal processing. This shows that basic sciences need not
go about researching for the current needs only. Today’s advances in basic
sciences have a potential to be used for future technologies. Therefore, there
is a need to invest a reasonable amount of resources for advancement of basic
sciences. In India, the situation is such that enough funding is not made
available for basic science research. One of the reasons is the fact that it
does not immediately cater to the technological needs of the time. As an aside,
it may be noted that the developed nations invest a significant percentage of
their GDP in the R&D sector. In addition to this, the educational
institutes are not in good collaboration with the R&D organizations of the
country. Even the post graduate students do not find a place in the R&D
organizations. Not much emphasis is given to the skill development of the
graduate students so that they become employable in the R&D sector. As a
result, many of the students who end up doing graduation in basic sciences do
not choose this as their first preference due to lack of opportunities
afterwards. This means that a lot of students do not have a genuine interest in
the subjects of basic sciences that they study and another group chooses
something else which offers more opportunities than basic sciences even if they
are interested in basic sciences.
The same kind of situation is there for arts and commerce
graduates too. Either they are not skilled to work for the industries or there
are not enough jobs that they are skilled for and can grab.
As a result, there are many government job profiles which
have to be made accessible to students of all streams. This brings about the
system of standardized tests that does not require intelligence or creativity
but repetitiveness and rote learning to crack. It is meant for rejecting
candidates based on the system of cut-offs and merit lists. This forces lakhs
of students to go through unproductive routine of preparing for government
exams which put a lot of pressure on the students due to very few seats
compared to the number of candidates. Moreover, the unsuccessful candidates
have to go through this unproductive process several times before being
successful in getting a mediocre job in the government sector.
All these point towards the fact that the children of our
country are being transformed into a pool of unemployable youth. They do not
possess the right set of skills for the industrial or the services sector. The
educated youth is not finding the kind of job that she has studied for. This
situation is also a kind of ‘joblessness’ which usually means the
unavailability of jobs. This means that no degree is promising enough that can
lead you to a respectable job without having to struggle for it. It is
inevitable for anyone pursuing any degree to go through a number of iterations
to find some job which is satisfying. Therefore, the stream or the subject to
be pursued by a student at any stage of her education should be decided by
giving significant and more weightage to her interest and lesser weightage to
the future opportunities that the degree will offer. This is because the opportunities
available are either very few for some streams or are overcrowded for other ones. Moreover, the kind of opportunities that may arise in future is unpredictable since the technology and the needs are fast changing. Time is therefore ripe to introduce holistic reforms in the education
sector to restructure the curriculum, assessment procedure and linkage of
colleges with the industries. Otherwise, the ‘demographic dividend’ might prove
to be a ‘demographic burden’ for the country.
By-ABHIJEET ROY
Indeed! it is the harsh truth of the current scenarios in our country about which no active reformation is being pursued by the people in power.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written.
Harsh reality! And the worst part nobody is ready to talk about it let alone work for a change.
ReplyDeleteSkillfully written, really put things into perspective.
Thanks for the insightful article.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add a few points.
The problem in our education system does seem to be acknowledged by the top most policy makers. There are many programs proposed and running to bring creativity and fun in learning. But these programs are limited in reach and effectiveness. The trouble is that the people who are responsible to implement these new elements do not actually believe in these fancy ideas. We have been conditioned to aspire for result oriented education for a long time, we value those education which promises us high paid career. The current generation teachers are also the victim of this system. In my opinion, it will take at least two generation to undo the brainwashing that the previously ill programmed education has done.