Category Archives: Education

How many of us know that we live in an entirely new generation?

In education there is literally an explosion, unseen in the past years. What sort of education India envisaged? Who are making you think about education in India?

Politicians, bureaucrats or who else? A difficult question! Certainly, politicians are the last people who care for education! They are busy with their own affairs. Yes, you see their daily utterances! We are not constrained or concerned with the current election buzz! We have to go by much more solid issues and concerns.

There are not enough thoughts on the sort of education we need. Of course, there have been great men and great minds in the past. We specially think of Raja Ram Mohan Roy who came at a critical moment in India’s history, in the early 1800s and we all know what historic shift he gave to India’s religious, social, cultural and even to the political transformation. Now, every such pivotal reformer had to pay a heavy price for their own self-consciousness and for actions.

Ram Mohan Roy paid the price and he died in a foreign country and  was for long forgotten even. I was shown the very place, just outside the Tagore mansion, Jorasanko in Kolkata from where Roy spoke and preached his Brahma Samaj messages and let us be clear at the outset, if you really speak on big subjects you have a price to pay too! By 2050 the world would have 9.3 billion people in the world? The historian Giovanni Federico calculated that the world has grown six or seven fold between 1800 and 2000.This means that we live in a generation that has seen unprecedented growth in people and India with incredible 1.3 billion souls!

That is in the next  30 years, we would have added another 3 billions of people in the world. Already, the pressure of people on the global scale is visible. More and more educated Indians, get educated and also get migrated to further progress in their lives. Migration of people, able-bodied, educated and aspirational-high people are moving out. So, what sort of education India of our generation needs? Who all can tell us these concerns? India is now in well-past post-Independence generation. Right now, India has, as they say, million mutinies and every awakened social and economic class has clear aspirations and goals.

The rich, the upper crust don’t have any goal for its own class. India has all the material security, they have all the economic and political clout so that they don’t need any well-thought-out education goal. We have seen how the one big industry house got the stamp of a centre of excellence before the institution was even started or not even named and even conceptualised!

Today’s politicians do whatever they want and the very many social ills the educated middle class thinks as right and wrong don’t apply to the upper class and their benefactors in politics. We live a democracy and that we have to rememebr. So, education for a democracy must serve the ends of democracy. Can we say this? We are not sure. Even the very middle class is bound by the democratic norms.

Elections is the biggest mark of democracy. So, with all the ills of modern democracies, we too in India must learn to live with. Corruption is the biggest threat and we have to learn to live with this evil. May be the mass of people even might not care for the so-called middle class values. So, we have to see how education policy had evolved in Independent India. Many education ministers had come and gone.

Some of them we knew in person like the great scholar, P.C.Chandra and
also politicians like Arjun Singh. Also, some great secretaries cum educators like J.P.Naik and Anil Bordia and others.

Today, we have no such talents. We have only populist politicians and very low-talents. Indian education bureaucracy is the largest in the world. So the quality of education too is very commercialised and what we have got are very indifferently-motivated. Let us at least say: our education today must serve all people and we have to learn to live with a lowest common denominator education only! Amen!

New challenges in Indian education! Education’s impact on the wider aspects of Indian public life!
Ideas for this generation’s education and culture!

The 16th Lok Sabha ends its mandate and the General Elections for the 17th Lok Sabha is due. India is a fairly literate country by now by various parameters and as  such it is also time that the people, the new generation, mostly youngsters, all educated would have the competence to judge the public issues.

As such we can ask some general questions. How the 16th Lok Sabha had performed its duties? Looking at the statistics, we see that one major state, namely, Tamil Nadu with 39 MPs, a state advanced in education, health and  industrialisation, not even one member had brought forward a private member Bill! Though in the present Lok Sabha 1,117 private member bills were brought forward and debated! This is only one example. There is not much evidence to show how many days in a year the Parliament functioned without any disruption! Very likely the Rajya Sabha, no less the Lok Sabha didn’t function for many days.

We have come to a time when the voting public, the common man only saw disruptions of the two Houses as a sign of its functioning! This is only one sign of the Indian state of how it functions. India is a large democracy in the world and also a functioning democracy. There are some strong positive features of our democracy. The periodic election, every five years, takes place and the outside world wonders and even admires our democratic functioning all these years. Then what about our education? Yes, it is also progressing faster.

But education’s meaning is not progressing! A literate society must get elected the right persons as MPs. Just the opposite is happening! The quality of education and also the expected rise in better awareness of the voting public is not forthcoming. Corruption in public life is rising and also latest developments in tackling corruption have resulted in many corrective actions. Some notable politicians, even Chief Ministers and their families have gone to jails!

So, the quality of our public life, some sober requisites, like some transparency, competency and also some general education and rise in awareness must lead to a vibrant democracy and the rise of human rights and also the fall in the quality of public men, political leaders and party inner workings must lead to parties selecting a bit higher quality members to Parliament must ensure the rise of quality
politics and public life.

Nowadays, the craze for education for migration hasn’t slowed down, though there is a decline in the number of Indian students going to the USA and UK. Costs of education are rising and also the American Visa rules have been tightened and the latest arrests and jail of 130 odd Indian students in an education fraud has come as a warning. Also, some courses like engineering and MBA are falling in fashion and
also the employment after US and UK education is also becoming scarce.

And what about education at home? Now, coming to Indian education, we see a sort of hypocrisy in our platform orations on education. All sorts of empty talks preponderate. Higher-ups, the President, Vice-President, past and present, hold on education. Macaulay is quoted; Gandhiji enters in and enter out! Yet, what we see? Education at the top has become highly commercial and like more corrupt politicians, corrupt education entrepreneurs have become new class of wrong doers! Whenever we see the political higher-ups on the platform, we also see the corrupt education entrepreneurs also gracing the functions!

The play of unethically earned big money is corrupting the higher education, nay even the private secondary education sector. That is one reason why the Indian education is not rising in genuine quality and any international comparisons in rankings. Also, the genuine new ideas or reforms are getting delayed entry into  education changes. In the last generation, we used to hear some education thinkers like Paulo Freire of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ivan Illich of the Deschooling society and many others. This generation there is a complete blackout! Who cares for ideas and intellectual debate? It is time some so us at least realise this and give up the bad practices of inviting Governors and Delhi higher ups, and bureaucrats to schools and colleges and universities’ functions.

The short-term and the long-term in education!
What do we, the general public, think of education as parents and citizens?

We are deeply moved to see that in Britain school children marched with placards to say: politicians! don’t spoil our future! By your
narrow, short term agendas! Save the planet, save the future, save the future of mankind! Adopt sustainable goals and future!

How nice it is to see the school children getting sensitised by the climate change and polluted environments!

We look for education institutions, schools, colleges and universities as that suit our children’s education, right?

Yes, that is right. But then times come when we see our leaders get on the platform and hold forth when they get an opportunity. When it comes to education, none seems to me at any rate, they have any serious idea of education.

Indian education in today’s world doesnt count in the world.  The world talks of education in the USA and UK, also even education in China, South Korea and why even the tiny island Singapore, where in  all these countries we are told they teach very good quality education. Why, the tiny Western country Finland is very much praised for their schools, why even for general society’s happiness, as the supreme purpose of education.

Why Indian schools and colleges are not rated high?  Why don’t foreign students choose to come to India for education?
These are some of the questions one has to ask and if possible one has to try to find out answers.

The Indian society and history are very different from other countries. India is the only country that was always under attack and invasions. India is the only country that became a country suited for foreign occupations. China was never an occupied country.

It was never an imperial power. But India was an occupied and invaded country for a very long time, from 10th century or so we were under one foreign occupier or not. After Babur, came  the Portuguese in 495 A.D., then very soon the British came.  First as traders and then as occupiers. We became a colony. It was, now looking back, a shameful past for Indians. Then came their ideas of occupation and rule and we learnt to speak English and do the chores of humble clerks.

If now we read Indian history, for this generation, I am not sure what is being taught as the British occupation periods. Even now, in England, at Oxford and Cambridge they teach Indian student researchers that the British colonialism was largely beneficial to the Indians!

And the English language?

Oh, that is the very different legacy. The Hon’ble Venkaiah Naidu, our Vice President is a wise leader and he recently told in Bangalore  that our education system hasn’t  risen above Macaulay! Well said. We are afraid the same thing might not be said by his valued colleagues.

The BJP hasn’t said anything on our English-rulers-given education system. Instead of calling for new ideas and thoughts for reforming
education, our current bunch of leaders want us not to get a  modern, science-based and technology driven education.

They have ridiculed modern sciences. See our Science Congresses! Nor is there any realistic thinking on education based on world trends. This is an age of globalisation and wide migration of people. The world is changing fast. May be only in this generation there is such an unprecedented changes.

So, education for Indians of this generation must be radically  changed, jobs have to be created on a large scale and all this is  possible only with a job-oriented education.  Education must encompass many facets of modern life, careers in a thousand odd areas has to come about.  All this is possible only with a robust thought process.

Culture for a country like India is so vital and critical. Where is this wise-range education? Our large number of schools and colleges are government funded and yet we see a heavy commercialisation  and there is this growing inequity and also inequality in the access for quality education. School drop outs is a great issue! Unesco’s Global Education Monitoring Report 2019 says 80% of migrant child in seven major cities don’t have education access near their work places.

That is why Acts like the Right to Education Act to impose their 25% quota on admissions to nearby quality schools. Drop-out of children in
the simply charging heavy fees some schools create a bad impression in the minds of parents about the ideas of quality education. Let our students go anywhere in the world in their pursuit of education.

Our education ministers in the States and at the Centre must be qualified persons, with proper education and experience. This is not seen happening. Our populist politics and quota-based admissions have created a situation that many of the education ministers  are school-dropouts!

Please at least save and resolve our current contradictions in education policy. Yes, give more incentives for mother-tongue based schools and also give more education subsidy to writers and publishers in mother tongues.

There are a range of policies deficies, you know?  Do you know that in many states, except Tamil Nadu the public libraries Act is not implemented. How can the local languages  grow and flourish?

There is lot of corruption in education, specially in self-financing  colleges. There are some very offensive practices by the self-financing colleges, they start TV channels, why even political parties and they ruin the minds and public morals!

Yes, education ministers must have high ethical calling. One big education trust, for instance in Tamil Nadu, the centuries old Pachayappa’s Trust is publicly scandalised by the high corrupt practices of the Trusties!

How can a state and society would feel? Only the Chief Ministers, past and present can take up such issues. So, the current contradictions in education and employment policies,the question of medium of education etc,. can be solved only if public spirited men and women are brought forward and entrusted with such public-recognised high offices.

Education is a question of honour and trust. The public perception and the public opinion needs to be sensitised.

Let more schools and colleges come forward to discuss and debate education and culture issues!

Let us liberalise the private sector in school education to create new types of secondary education that gives Indian school’s system to promote more quality schools!

Yes, this is how the senior most and much-respected civil servant, Rahul Khullar describes the Schools scenario in New Delhi. He has in effect pleaded for allowing the high-fee charging rather publicly perceived glamorous schools, most call themselves as public schools even in a low cost Karol Bagh lane(!) and also by now other new fancy names and titles like International public schools etc. The point here is that Delhi’s so-called ”Public Schools” are no more public and it is like the American Public schools that are not government schools either.

The crux here is that Delhi’s so-called elite community is enamored by its own hierarchy; the wards of senior civil servants and the rich and not so often well-informed but by going by what the New Delhi power-elite imagines as glamorous and also high society, try to sneak into some selective schools, if some old fashioned name carries more weight, it carries more attractive a pull.

Hidden in the debate is the place of English medium, more pretence is given to the English medium by the concerned school or schools command. So, the school education medium is the most critical question. The scantiest attention to the medium is more controversial.

The Aam Aadmi party that rules Delhi has its own rather unarticulated whims and fancies about the school curriculum. This we are not sure and no one raises such sensitive questions. Let us say the Delhi schools ,whoever wants to teach in English medium and then the pleas and counter pleas for raising the  school fees can do so and get away from any regulations whatever.  Unfortunately, the government schools that implement the Seventh Pay Commission teachers’ salaries are lucky for the obvious reason that they can teach in whatever fashion they want, being government schools and it is the private schools that have the burden to retain their brand value and also pay well.

With a great deal of personal knowledge about how even the famous British established Public Schools perform in final exams, it is simply a dilemma for the really committed and genuine well-run schools to pay well and retain talents. So, there can’t be a rational solution to run a good secondary school these days. We have to draw an enlightened education policy, recognize genuine quality and some national ideals and declare that the good quality Public Schools enjoy some real freedom and not mere verbal autonomy, give a clear recognition, under some conditions some more autonomy to charge a publicly known high fee structure and so like the British Public Schools (for instance the famous Eton Public College in England now charges nearly 40 thousand Pounds a year!)But it is the brand value that matters here! So, long as some schools enjoy this sort of brand value somehow the money the schools can charge and get away. Facilities like a very good sports infrastructure of the Olympic level, such extracurricular activities and facilities like Horse Riding tracks etc. can be introduced into International level public schools in India.

Apart from all other government considerations, we have to revive and revitalize the Indian Public Schools Conference and make a genuine public debate about the need to run international level secondary schools! You see that India has some peculiar history of education. Coming of Independence gives us a great responsibility to reform Indian education, keeping in mind our own ethos and transformation of Indian political and socio-economic realities. Sorry to say so but the gross reality is that we can’t create an artificial society and political culture in the name of democracy and social equality. We need new ideas and creative thinkers.

To some extent we have to create an open society and this means much tolerance of the ground level realities. We have instances of those powerful bureaucrats, why the Central government ministers through their children in highly reputed private schools because of the schools’ prestige in society. One HRD minister, for instance, called Headmistress from the South all the way to New Delhi. Once this school head saw the minister, the minister said to give a seat at her school! So, our point here is to allow new types of schools, yes, expensive ones can also be allowed so that what we have said about the British style Public Schools too can thrive and we can create special scholarships for bright pupils to benefit by such schools of excellence.

Quantity, commercialisation and sheer money drives growth,also greedy money-seekers!

Education Policy making is in Limbo! Higher education or any other stage of education is highly profitable! There is a very short introduction to education,universities and colleges before me.

Great names have been here for ages.Yes,even if we leave out the old names, honorary names, Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum and also the legendary Alexandria Library,we have universities in modern times, from Bologna(1088)to Oxford (and surprisingly, with due pardon, my own Oxford College (New College)1379!). So, universities are as old as we can look for.

But today with millions of students, from China and India alone, many millions, in total, over 150 million in over 17,000 institutions; twenty million in over 4,000 universities in the USA alone makes for a huge number.In fact, today mass university education is what we should call as higher education. And as for India,there are states like Tamil Nadu where an equal number of colleges, engineering and other technical colleges which charge what is allied capitation fee colleges!

In some of these states now private education is big business.And surprisingly too, the big education businessmen are rated higher than even the incumbent government ministers! Some of them, we are sorry to say so, are also the most ill-suited one, some plain illiterates and bad men of society! But what to do?Society and politics are changing fast in these new states, Tamil Nadu,you have some bizarre scenes.The founders of these self-financing,capitation fee-seeking universities,please note these are universities,some of the founders may not know many of the critical information we like to convey here.They don’t care!They are yet men with lot of clout.

Twenty first century colleges and universities

Some of the founders of the new twenty first century universities were once cinemas actors, of course as villains or side actors or simply musclemen to heroes and others have still more shady  backgrounds!What to do?Simply bear with them.Why?Even one or two have started political parties and sure they would soon plunge into politics!So,you have to please them at one point or the other. It is money, big money and black money that is going to decide politics till such time; let us hope,that politics would become more cleaner than what it is today.You see it is democracy and democracy forbids your freedom for free expression and also your right to speak freely!

So, education today is many things to many people.It is not surely, a search for knowledge for knowledge’s sake! So, we have a stage in our own evolution as a nation when we have to put up with so much nonsense as knowledge.If you drive through one major road in Tamil Nadu interior,the very length is paved with huge buildings, all schools or colleges,one college is also reputed to have got the largest number of women’s colleges. In this age of gender equality you have to be careful not to offend any sections’ sentiments. Also, this is the age in India of highly sensitive quota politics! Also, in tune with the changing times,we have to consider the many new Acts,the very important Right to Education Act is the one new beneficial law which requires every eligible student to be admitted into schools! This is a very critical legislation  where you can’t deny admission to schools in their own neighborhood.

All the accumulated socio-economic and cultural inequities have created layers and layers of injustice,in the name of castes and economic inequities and only by sheer democratic state politics and polices only we can redress the modern equities and correct the age of customs too.Today as we write, we read that there are now more ‘out of school children’ than we imagined with the new legislations in place. Also, there are young girls driven to human trafficking, under the immoral trafficking acts,including the Devadasi system against which laws have been passed but not implemented, we read in the states of Karnataka and Goa!

So,for Indians,more so Indian education policy makers,there are issues and more issues than what we choose to read books and researches written and published in UK and USA!

We in the Journal of Education,are of the strong view that our education policy making is caught in a limbo!Democracy throws up the most incompetent and unqualified!May be it is the price  we have to pay for living in such times of mass awakening!