Indian Education - Past, Present and Suggestions for Future

 There is a popular idiom in Bengali, "Ora joto besi bojhe, toto kom mane" (The more they understand, the less they obey). So, why I am starting this article with a Bengali quote? Obviously, not to disturb my non-Bengali friends. Rather, this is probably one of the best phrases that portrays  the mentality of the British rulers of Colonial India, and their blind followers, of course. Let's recollect two snaps.

Take 1: Please remember that day -  2nd Feb,1835 - when Thomas Babington Macaulay was asked in the House of Commons as how to subjugate this nation with so vast a wealth and grandeur. His was historical reply meant to say - to finish off the prevalent education system in India and to instate in its place one which teaches British as a superior race and to serve them. Even, In 1836, while serving as chairman of the Education Board in India, he enthusiastically wrote to his father:

"Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. The effect of this education on the Hindus is prodigious... It is my belief that if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytize, without the smallest interference with religious liberty, by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the project."

[If this kind of introduction gives you the impression that this is going to be merely another hate speech against the westerners, please bear with me for some more time.]

Take 2: Now cut from 1835 and come to 2005. 

 Remember the speech our Honorable Prime Minster His Highness Dr. Manmohan Singh (delivered when Oxford University conferred an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law on him in July,2005). Some excerpts:

• "Consider the fact that an important slogan of India's struggle for freedom was that "Self Government is more precious than Good Government". That, of course, is the essence of democracy. But the slogan suggests that even at the height of our campaign for freedom from colonial rule, we did not entirely reject the British claim to good governance. We merely asserted our natural right to self-governance.
•  Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.
•  Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern school system....Today, English in India is seen as just another Indian language. 
• it is undeniable that the founding fathers of our republic were also greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of enlightenment in Europe."  

So, what I understand from the entire speech, can be summed up like:

We are indebted to the English for teaching us good governance, modern education, law and order, science, English language.

 This was extremely shameful for any INDIAN, who has at least one ounce of self-respect. For once, we might think, well, Churchill was right in saying - "If India is granted freedom, power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water will be taxed." 

 Now cut from 2005, and come straight to today. As I sat mulling over where to start from and what to write, I realized, in India, it does not take a genius to point out the problems in any sphere (some problems are so explicit, I often wonder why they are still unsolved), and may be least intelligence is required if the name of the sector is Higher Education. It is clear to all of us today that in the emerging global world order, India is trying to position herself as a superpower, a knowledge driven economy and thus importance of higher education will keep increasing tremendously. So, no doubt, it's the best time to discuss about the problems of this sector. And, for the ease of discussion, I am dividing my into three parts (Yes, I have been inspired by Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, in nomenclature) - Maa ki chhilen (How our dear mother was), Maa ki hoiachhen (How she is now) and Maa ki hoiben (How will she be).

Maa ki chhilen (How our dear mother was)-:

  Education in ancient India was Gurukul based. Almost everybody knows about Gurukuls to some extent and I would not elaborate too much on this here. But let's try to point out where our education system stood as compared to the British. From the proceedings in the House of Commons on 2nd Feb,1835 we can draw the following comparisons.

1. The literacy rate in South India was 100%, in Western India 98%, in Northern India 82% and in central & rest of India was 87%. Whereas the British education minister says that at that time literacy in whole of Great Britain was only at 17% !!

2. There were approximately 7.5 lakh Gurukuls and their strength varied from 200 to 20,000. Whereas in Britain there were hardly 250 schools.

3. Subjects taught in Gurukuls varied from Vedic Mathematics, Astronomy, Metallurgy, Karigari to modern sciences like Astro-physics, Medicine, Surgery as compared to only Bible being taught in their schools.

4. In Europe be it economics or science or engineering or philosophy, everyone agrees "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato"- Alfred North Whitehead. In his book "The Republic", Plato said that only the ruling class in a society needs to be educated as they are the ones issuing orders/instructions and the rest only need to follow. This was maintained by such great scholars like Aristotle, Leibniz, Descartes, Rousseau in their books.

Here is my earnest appeal to you Manmohan-ji, next time you address on a world stage please care to know the history of the nation you repesent. The country is ashamed to see you as its citizen and I am ashamed to see you as our PM.

Maa ki hoiachhen (How is she now)-:

   Slowly the British form of education set-in and replaced the old system. They got their constant supply of trained 'Babus' who worked as intermediaries & petty office clerks and we started embracing and praising whatever western. Thus, in course of time, our own education system got destroyed and we can't adapt with European system either (much expected result).

 Then one fine morning, we ultimately got independence. Well, we were lucky enough to have some visionaries like Maulana Azad who formed the UGC (an important institution to supervise and advance higher education) and IITs.

As time went on the population increased at a rapid rate and soon the educational institutions too expanded sacrificing quality for quantity. Nothing was being done at the primary levels and number of dropouts after 6th standard and 10th standard kept increasing. Desires for western appraisals never diminshed, Indian students still flock to tier-3 universities in US or Europe for a degree and are revered as a huge achievement in our society. Once a professor at an IIT remarked "People generally do not come to the IITs for more than one degree."

Moreover the ever prevalent problems of minority appeasement and caste based vote-bank politics also made its way through reservations. A liberal education is at the heart of a civil society, and at the heart of a liberal education is the act of teaching. The institutes of national importance (INI) are plagued with shortage of professors and well-trained staff, even if available are not good enough. The recent setting up of seven more IITs perhaps will enlarge this void all the more. All of these coupled with the foolhardy Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal's decision to change IIT-JEE pattern trampling the autonomy of IITs, was a big thrust towards a complete breakdown.

Out of the huge number of students passing out of the bachelors programme, less than 5% land up a job in their core area of expertise. Rest go off to some high paying jobs in banking/insurance/trading... So much for producing skilled manpower. 

Some brain-storming points, on the current condition of Indian Education system are mentioned under following section, for the ease of discussion.   

Maa ki hoiben (How will she be)-:

Following are some points which I think might help -:

1. The IITs and IISc are setting up new state-of-the art labs but there are none to run the machines. Thus a student who wishes to use the machine needs to go through the painstakingly long manuals or run around searching for someone who already worked on the machine. This is certainly not so in reputed foreign universities, where a salaried technically expert person is kept all time to operate the instruments.
   
   
2. Expenditure for higher education in India is only about 10.5% of total expenditure, 52,000 crore in 2011 (as per UNESCO report). An alternative study is available on Eximguru. So, how can we become very enthusiastic  about the future of Indian education system?
   
   
3. Most universities in India still do not have access to the latest journals; and when we think of “state of the art facilities,” we only have in mind clean toilets, and electricity to run our computers. The fact is that most Indian universities do not have the funds to air-condition lecture halls or provide air-conditioning even in the chambers of senior professors.
   
   
4. According to a survey, over 94,000 families in India which are willing to spend on average Rs 12,40,000 (Rs 1.24 million) a year on their children's education. The failure of the HRD ministry to tap into this huge potential does signify lack of quality education here.
   
   
5. To address the above issue I think the INIs can start two parallel programmes where one will be more of a compensatory course (lets name it Mcomp) where the student will have to bear his/her full expenditure and another course (lets name it Morg) where the student will be selected purely based on research skills, dedication and sincerity and would contribute to the institute's research output. The second one might be a longer course than the former. Similar thing might be implemented in bachelor's programme also.
   
   
6. The research in Indian Universities is generally no-good. In the IITs, barring few departments, it is generally incremental research. The general mood is make a change here, make a change there and get a paper published, very small effort/thought goes into actual innovation. 
   
   If we compare the advancement of Indian science with the Chinese, we would be simple ashamed.  As reported by the Global Post, "...while Chinese academics published a similar number of papers in 1997 — 12,632 — that figure rises to 67,433 by 2007. As a result, China contributes 8.6 percent of the world's scientific papers, a British study found, while India lags behind with a mere 2.4 percent."
   
   This year IEEE released a list of prohibited authors along with their institutes for 2010-2011 accused of plagiarising. It is a shame that almost one-third of them are from India.
   
   
7. Paying the professors more might seem a jolly good idea but I myself do not know the future ramifications. 
   
   
8. People quite often ask whether the higher education system in India has managed to raise the standard of living of the poor Indian masses who are struggling with massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices, huge problems of health care, housing etc. I have fundamental issues with this line of argument. First of all, massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices and such other governance-related problems are not the failures of the Indian higher education system: these are systemic failures and pinning that on the Indian higher education system is grossly unfair. Second, the primary job of the universities is to teach students and guide their research, not to tell the government how to run the country. Third, even when the universities produce research-based studies on ways of improving various aspects of governance in the country, the government hardly ever takes notice of the research outputs of universities. If the babus don’t listen to the professors, why blame the professors?
   
   
9. Once Brigham Young has said - 

 “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.”.  

Education of women in India is improving no doubt but still much more needs to be done at the primary and secondary levels. Many social issues become a hindrance here.

Well, so much for the future of the nation. Perhaps if I were a political activist I would rally support and fight for education reforms in the country! Perhaps one day that will be so! For now... I write.

References :- 

1. Language in India Website.

2. Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, available on Columbia University Website. 

3. G. M. Young (ed.) 1935. Speeches by Lord Macaulay with his Minute on Indian Education. Oxford University Press, London

4. The Background of Macaulay's Minute by Elmer H. Cutts. The American Historical Review, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Jul., 1953), pp. 824-853

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Disclaimer: This article is penned by Shri Debopam Banerjee. So, it is based on his personal opinion which does not necessarily match with the view of the editorial team of The Analyst .   Additionally we do not take any responsibility for any information mentioned in the above content. 
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Note from the Editors: Some are questioning about the sources of the comments of T.B.Macaulay and Winston Churchill. So, we are hereby providing some references that are taken from reputed Websites/books. If you have any solid evidence that those are wrong, please inform us. Then only we would remove that said part.

1. The Macaulay Comment:

      i) Aryan Invasion — History or Politics? -- Article by Dr. N.S.Rajaram 

    ii) Page no 4, From Bharata to India: Volume 1: Chrysee the Golden -- A  book by M. K. Agarwal
    iii)Page no 204, God and Goddesses in Hinduism by Krishan Saigal
  
2. The Churchill Comment:
  i)Past present: Churchill said  -- by Mubarak Ali [Dawn is one of the most reputed newspaper of Pakistan]
  ii)Mr PM, you made Churchill proud -- by Ram Jethmalani.
 iii)Indian Raj outdoing British Raj -- by B.S.Raghavan

  Debopam
(Guest Author)

About the Author:

Debopam Banerjee is an Hon'ble guest author of The Analyst.

He is continuing his M Tech at IIT Bombay. He loves public commenting on various social and political issues, but extremely passionate about Indian Education system.

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