VOICES FROM IIT, MADRAS
From 2002 to 2005 I taught as part-time faculty at the IIT, Madras. My job was to teach the second year B. Tech students German as a foreign language on a beginner’s level. But the classes often went beyond the framework of only language teaching and learning. And there was an enthusiastic response from the students. In one exam question paper students of the batch I was teaching in the academic year 2003-04 were asked to write their views on the Indian education system and I felt the responses were worth sharing with a wider audience. At that time I had the students’ permission to try and get their views published in a student magazine, but the student editor of the magazine did not find the form of the compiled views suitable. Though many years have passed, I still feel these views are highly relevant and I am taking this opportunity to put them in public domain as they show not only the sensitivity of the very bright and elite students, but also the fact that they too feel victims of the general social and education system. The only big stumbling block in this sensitivity is the anti-reservations sentiment, and the treatment of Dalit students in the institution, which I emphatically do not empathize with. If only we adults learned to really listen to the voices of growing children we could possibly arrive at a more humane education system and society.
- Pranjali Bandhu
Sruti Chigulapalli
The biggest problem with the Indian education system is that it does not reach the remote areas and villages. Due to poverty many children, particularly girl children, are not encouraged to study but are sent out to earn bread and butter for the family. Many girl children do not even complete school. India will be a developed nation only if the women of India are educated and allowed to have an independent existence.. There are often so many constraints on a woman’s life that she is forced to stay at home and take care of the family.
More schools should be opened in villages and education must be made compulsory and free for all children below 14 years. Girl children should be encouraged to complete schooling and go on to higher educational institutions. If the mother is educated, the whole family will prosper and India will really shine in the future.
Jeurkar Aditya Vishwas
The education system in India is, frankly speaking, BORING! I don’t think anyone who passes out of any graduate school wants to learn more for enjoyment of learning, for all the enthusiasm is sucked out of him.
We are never taught why we are learning what we are learning. The compulsion for high grades and compulsion for learning something without any interest in it is working against the system. Too much importance is placed on grades, which makes us learn only for grades. For 10 to 15 years many subjects are compulsory which makes a person lose interest even in whatever he’s interested in. He has a burden of the things he truly ‘hates’ and which he is promptly going to forget after the exams, and which he is not likely to use again.
One more thing is that no weight is given to practical experience in our education system. The actual working of machines is not taught, only some theoretical stuff which is forgotten after the exams. Actual scientific, rational and analytical thinking is not inculcated. And, of course, there is hardly any room for creativity and for creative solutions to problems.
Students are not let into society and thus do not acquire any knowledge of how society really works. Our whole education system is a factory of making clones of a handful of minds. Hardly do I see anyone who has a ‘new’ opinion on something. Teaching previous opinions and asking them to mug them up is easy and dangerous. Fresh opinions should be let into the stream, which is never done.
We are not taught to systematically find the root of the problem by going deeper into it, why we feel it as a problem and then root out the reason and weed out the problem forever. So we need self-help books, 12-step guides etc. for everything in life.
We are just told to care for everyone, not taught. We are told to care for nature, not taught.
The communication, friendliness between the teacher and the taught is like …. nowhere. Why should we learn from someone who doesn’t want to teach us the way we want? We’d never like to learn from someone who doesn’t WANT to teach.
The last thing is the zero weight given to learning on our own, which should be the leitmotif. We are never allowed to learn what we want (but what they want). Mark Twain has truly summed up everything about the education system in his one aphorism: “Let the schooling not affect your education.”
Prashant Kumar
Our education system should be structured to what our society and economy needs. Maximum courses are copycat of what is taught in the US and British education system, when our society’s needs and aspirations are quite different from those of these developed societies. Our education system should be based on our own traditions, like that of Nalanda.
Jaganath Ramarathnam
One of the main problems with the Indian education system is that there is little flexibility offered to the students. This is required because the students must be allowed to do the subjects which they are interested in so that they can enjoy their careers and specialise in them. This flexibility is offered in the foreign education systems such as the one I have experienced as they offer and allow a student to take any combination of subjects which h/she wants and a variable number of subjects according to his/her aptitudes.
The next biggest problem with the Indian system is that a huge amount of theoretical knowledge is presented without much practical details to the students. The problem with this is that the students therefore cannot practically apply their knowledge very well. Thus one major goal of the education system fails. The effect of this can be observed from the difference between what a high school student from, say UK, can do when compared to that of an Indian high school student. Ideally, the system should be application oriented so that the theory can be effectively used. One side effect of the above point is that few students tend to develop love and interest for the subject as we can see in the case of the IITians. In developed countries most students enjoy their career extremely well and pursue further studies for the same reason.
Yet another problem with the Indian education system is that it has absolutely no emphasis on extracurricular activities. Universities admitting students do not look at the extracurricular activities of the student. The result of this is that the major advantage of extracurricular activities in character building is not seen. Since the Indian high school student has not faced much of the world outside, or developed people to people skills, or done voluntary work, he stands to lose in terms of maturity and confidence in front of the foreign high school student.
Furthermore, there is little guidance offered in the Indian education system as to what the student could do, where his talents lie, what his interests are etc. This is well provided in the foreign education system with the help of ‘mentors’ in the school who look after the above mentioned points. Thus confusion is eradicated and people enjoy their work more and make better decisions.
Finally, the Indian education system has no emphasis on creativity and has poorly developed arts subjects and this is the reason why Indians are regarded as very good analysts but poor innovators or creators. Education and development must be comprehensive and not one-sided.
Kumar Nikhil
Our education system is heavily unbalanced in the higher education sector. While we do have institutions of world class reputation, many a time students are fooled by fraudulent organisations. There are “technical schools” which have no more than 4-5 garages which are supposed to produce ‘engineers’. The government should regulate the opening of private institutions and set basic standards for them.
Primary education in the villages also suffers from many problems. There are not many good teachers ready to go and teach there. Even those who go are not trained enough to tackle the illiterate villagers properly and hence they too quit soon. Besides there have been news reports of teachers sleeping in the class rooms of village schools while the students prepare their tea.
Prakruti Gupta
Nowadays there is a problem of tuitions and coaching classes. Teachers won’t teach anything in the class as they want students to come to them for tuitions. Good schools have very high tuition fees and poor people can’t afford that. Primary education should be free. Privatisation of schools and colleges should not be there. For higher education in a good institute there are very tough competitive exams and the fees that we have to pay is too much. But nowadays the government is providing loans for higher education.
Students should be self-dependent (not completely) and should be given freedom in certain fields. By this they will learn to make decisions later in life as you can’t live your life holding your parents’ finger.
Siddharth Singh
The Indian education system is designed in such a way that children get burdened at an early age. Instead of being forced to read boring, monotonous books since class two-three, they must be taken around, made to interact with nature; their knowledge about things happening in their vicinity must be enhanced so that when they go ahead in life, they are capable of asking questions and finding answers.
“A clever man is gauged by his answers. A wise man is gauged by his questions.”
Saurabh Madaan
High donations fetch seats in most engineering and medical colleges in the country. As a result, the quality of education imparted and the respect for various professions has declined. Everyone knows that there is a lot of talent in India. But there have been far more Ramanujans, who were lost by India in shameful anonymity, arising out of the flaws in our system.
Sreejith Narayanan E.
“I was born intelligent, but education ruined me.” These words are quite popular among youngsters in India.
In the pre-modern era, where the caste system was based on the profession carried out by the people, they did not have much of a choice to select what they wanted to do, as the professions were somewhat hereditary. Thus the son of a priest was always a priest, though he might not be interested in becoming one.
As time progressed, the system started changing. Technology started ruling the education system and people started running behind it. That was the beginning of the present education system….
University education has become a business rather than a service, and the scenario is such that only the rich can afford quality university education. This should change.
When we reach into the university, another thing which we can observe is the quality of all-round education. Take the case of the IITs, which boast of being the best technology institutes in India. They train people like robots rather than as human beings. They are forgetting the fact that above everything, one should have a good character. For me the last two years have been painful as I was stressed throughout my stay either by exams or by courses. There should be some course which teaches us to live our life as a man, which they don’t have. So we might become some good technologists devoid of human qualities. This should not happen. So we have to read through these lines again:
“I was born intelligent, but education ruined me!”
J. Karthik
The problem of the Indian educational system is relevant not just to the teachers, parents and the student community, but concerns itself with the whole of the Indian population. The success of the country and the well being of its people depends on the educational system in more ways than we can imagine. Lets face it. No educational system is perfect and ours is no exception. But the key to solving such an important problem lies in not shying away from the problem but in understanding it and addressing it.
The present system of education has its roots in the British system of learning but at the same time has come a long way in carving a style for itself. The weakest link in the Indian school education has been its stagnancy. With science that is almost half a decade old, the ‘Indian schooling’ has not matured. Basic sciences are important but with no emphasis on the emerging technologies, the student ends up an ardent listener. The indifferent administration and the lack of practical knowledge in terms of experiments and projects just aggravate the problem. The textbooks too are filled with truckloads of mistakes.
The examination system has got its share of stick in the last decade or so. Examinations, which stretch for 3 hours or so, end up deciding a child’s career. The years of hard work a student puts into preparing for an important examination like JEE culminates in a mere three hours examination. What a mockery the system has made of the students’ effort? What and how much can somebody test in 3 hours? The overemphasis on examinations has resulted in a rat race for marks at all levels of the system, striking at the very heart of the usefulness of education. The students end up learning loads of alien material without understanding even a single line.
The accessibility of even primary school education is not around for all. With the traditional Indian values (which affects the education of women), and the lack of enough government schools the results are there for all of us to see. With a large illiterate population whatever little progress we make in the economy or science will go down the drain.
If we can achieve all that we have in terms of science, economy, etc. with the amount of problems that we are facing, only sky is the limit if we use our fullest potential. But the fact remains that we are facing problems that need to be solved. Only a collective and dedicated effort from all the citizens in terms of reforming the system and ensuring primary education to all can enable us to become a superpower that we are capable of. Let us join together and do something. Anything.
A. Vibin
The Indian education system is virtually plagued with problems and I begin on a pessimistic note, that it would require one more Hercules to clean up this mess. Since the Age of Heroes is long gone, I guess we will be stuck with this system for quite some time.
Firstly, our system is totally lopsided with too much importance being focused only on “technology” and other disciplines particularly arts being counted as trash. Tamil Nadu, for example, has about 180 engineering colleges. Andhra and Karnataka, I believe are pretty close to this number and not to be left behind Kerala is now in hot pursuit. The point I want to make is our so-called technical stronghold too takes a beating, when we consider such a large number of colleges. There obviously are not enough qualified people to teach in these colleges, so the quality takes a severe beating.
The fact is the arts colleges are a last option for those few who don’t manage to make it to any of these engineering colleges. When economics that drives a nation, and history that teaches what mistakes we shouldn’t commit, are treated as third rate subjects the education will take a severe beating.
There are other problems but I must stop for lack of time.
T. Raghuram
Being educated doesn’t mean that you are literate. We are being educated but we are not literate. Literate in the sense that we do not know how, why and where to apply theories, concepts etc. (which we learn from our education). Whatever we learn, (“getting educated”) we forget in a matter of no time. From annual exams during our school days to end-semester exams in IIT there is no place given to a guy who is really good at concepts and theories (regarding their application) to come up as the education system has converted us into “machines”. Many children are sent to coaching institutions even for getting admission to standard I. Then comes the competitive examination part where the student has to look after his school as well as his coaching institution. Literally, many of us are converted to “machines” until our education ends. The itinerary goes something like this: wake up, study, eat breakfast, study, have lunch, study, have dinner, study, sleep. Where do we get any time for extra-curricular activities? Don’t they build character?
Instead of making studies enjoyable they are making students hate studies more as they go higher and higher in educational qualifications. We study not because we want to but because we have to. Education should make us better people by building our character and better professionals by having a good balance between theory and practice. Take the case of IIT, for example: many students don’t attend classes. They study just one day before the exam as they know how to get marks (or grades), which is the only thing that matters. What does anybody gain from this? The emphasis should be on learning rather than on just “remembering” facts and getting full marks in the exam.
Finally, I would wrap up by saying that the main aim of the education system in India should be to make people “literate”, that is, to ensure that they have good characters and are skilled professionals.
Mehul Dixit
“I did not allow my schooling to interfere with my education,” said Mark Twain. What did he mean? We need to understand that the present day education system of India is not able to produce educated citizens. This may sound contradictory, but it will soon become clear.
Firstly, the system in India does not give any freedom to the students. There is no point in making a student, not interested in maths, to learn it. He could opt for maths as an elective in his arts group. Such proposals have been implemented by ICSE, but on a very small scale.
Another problem with the system is that too much importance is given to bookish knowledge. The system should focus on producing overall educated students, if the nation is to progress.
A few schools have come up with innovative methods to counter the system. For example, Vidyaranya in Hyderabad does not have a ranking for students up till class 8. The curriculum framed must cover various aspects of education. The ICSE curriculum fulfills this to quite a large extent but again the schools offering it are accessible only to the elite section of the society.
The biggest drawback of India as compared to other nations is the lack of primary education to all. The government instead of wasting money should make primary education available to every child in India, and that will be our first step towards becoming a developed nation.
Gautam Prakash
The biggest problem, I feel, with our education system is the immense pressure on the students. There is pressure not only from teachers and parents but also from not-so-obvious sources such as media. The “first class first” shown in many movies is one example. Back to the education system – a student has to put in a lot of his/her time into studies. This leaves them very little time for pursuing their other interests and hobbies. Over the years, what this has resulted in is aversion to education. No one finds going to school enjoyable any more. Students don’t take any interest in their studies.
Another problem is the lack of practical experiments in school. Seeing how things work can do wonders for one’s understanding and interest as well. Students should be taken out for excursions, nature walks, to museums and the like.
One general trend, usually seen in schools is the way the teachers lead the way a class goes. It should be more student-oriented and much more interactive than it is now. The negative aspect of one’s personality has an exponential growth when one is punished for some fault of his. He should be talked to, given counseling if required, and not sent out of the class.
Coming to higher education: the infrastructure at Indian colleges and universities, leaving apart a small fraction, just don’t match up to the world standards. I know what it is like in a local college because I have studied in one. There are about 4 months of holidays, a month of teachers’ strikes, a month of students’ strikes, a month of students’ elections, and you have some 5 months of “studies” in a year. This is excluding the free periods and the weekends. What is this supposed to be? A joke?
Especially after the AICTE has started “recognising” institutes like someone at a casino, things have just gone from bad to worse. There is a management college at every corner. You can pass out with a B. Tech degree from a college without a building. Fresh graduates from colleges are hired as lecturers. This is not the right path to becoming a developed nation. Surely, you don’t want a doctor from such a college operating on you.
Gaurav Jetley
India lacks good educational institutes and has only few world class institutes like IIT’s and IIM’s, which could accommodate or educate only 2 per cent of the students appearing in their entrance exam. Even in these institutions the labs and workshops have old equipment and students are not able get all facilities in the lab due to which they have to go to other countries for higher studies. The student who is able and wants to do some research has no other option but to go abroad. This further leads to the problem of brain drain and students who were supposed to work for betterment of the country are forced to leave their country.
Akshay Bansal
The Indian education system is not structured to meet the demands of modern times. Our education system lacks flexibility. A large number of dropouts at an early age in India is possibly because of this inflexibility. Children lacking guidance from any side lose interest in their studies and drop out. In India, the teachers do not make an effort to find the latent talent of the student and help him find a definite life path. It is of utmost importance that flexibility be induced into the education system for making it student-friendly. This will help the students to concentrate their energies on subjects of their interest and make them more successful.