I am back again!!! After a bout of vacillation, I intend to continue writing blogs.
After staying here for six/seven months, it s my hope that I've captured the key differences between education systems of India and US.
Applicability and sources: First and foremost, I want to underscore that my thoughts are derived from my own observations so far, and based on the experience I've gone through during my bachelor degree. While attempting to write an article of this sort, I feel that I should confine myself to the view points which are,by and large, applicable to the entire education system in India as far as engineering is concerned.
* The thing that tops the list of short comings of Indian education system is, emphasizing more on auxiliary skill set rather than the main purpose. Indian students are forcibly conditioned to verbose writing and making the answer sheets aesthetically attractive. Though there is nothing wrong in emphasizing on presentation skills, it becomes a cause for worry, when answer papers are rewarded because of their good outlook rather than their content. When a person is rewarded mainly on the merit of volume and outlook of his technical paper, there is every reason for him to be deluded into the thinking that he is on right way. Thereby, the very purpose of having the system of grading is defeated.
* Incompetence of the teachers is another reason for the downfall of Indian education . When many courses in this discipline demand well designed and thoughtful assignments , most of the time, assignments given to students are farcical. In the system, where only the number of assignments matters, there is little room to talk about quality of them.
* The quality of the question paper set is measured only by the severity of the mathematics involved in it. Most of the time, a question paper which expects painfully severe, mind boggling, mathematics ride away with the honor of "Question paper of good standard", pushing the logic and purpose of studying the course to the back seat.
* Though stacking of the courses are in the right order, the view of learning things- knowing the applicability- is mired under the difficulty of the course. Most of the time, the ability to relate different courses is almost absent because there is little incentive for doing so.
* A healthy portion of students are choosing engineering only for its ability to open up avenues for getting into software industry and not because of its richness of content. People who are with priceless ability that can earn accolades for them, had they chosen other fields, are getting perished because of the limited scope for racking in big monetary benefits in those fields. "Lack of interest anywhere will not fetch us rewards" has been disproved because of the flawed grading system. Despite all, the possibility of those uninterested people being successful academically in terms of grades says everything about the quality of the system at large. Many students who have got into engineering just because it is a professional course, would prefer tame teachers who will make their life easy when it comes to getting a degree with ease; Interestingly, there is no scarcity for such teachers in India.
In US most of the problems are resolved just by applying COMMON SENSE when it comes to ensuring the quality of education. That is the only thing that differentiates US education system completely from Indian counterpart.
Pointing fingers will always be easy. But all problems will loom larger while suggesting solutions. The solution for this problem, does not depend only on correcting the way the education system works. It is, not surprisingly, related to how society works. The mercenary society - where the engineering institutions have become a way of making money- does stand a little chance in expecting a fair education. The sheer negligence of the concerned officials who are entrusted with ensuring the quality of education is the main reason for its downfall; but they are not left alone in sharing the blame, the other rightful owners of this shame are ,parents encouraging the flourishing of bogus institutions, students content with getting a job with decent pay check, low pay for the people choosing teaching line, lack of visionary politicians who are keen only on vote banks, all the people electing them to the power, the list will grow till includes all the citizens of India including me. There is no single and simple solution for the betterment of education system in India. In the current political atmosphere, one can only wish the change in future without assigning any time line.
To minimize our share of the blame, I guess we need not be martyrs but it is enough to apply our commonsense when we discharge our duties associated with various roles such as a son, a student, a citizen, a father, an employee, an employer etc.
Collective and drastic change in the mindset of people can only beget the slow death of this malady. The problem will keep assuming diabolical proportions, as long as, the bad attitude -of attributing the entire cause to others , without realizing the fact that everything revolves around us- prevails.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Glimpse!!!
I am happy to present my views on eternal, immeasurable universe. First of all who am I to comment on universe? Read further to get the answer.
Like many who take time to wonder nature and her every tiny delicate nuances of tremendous amount of expressions, I enjoy watching her at her best. Obviously, the beauty I relish is something personal to me since "beauty lies in the eyes of beholder". I always strive hard to enrich my land of conception and execution. I really doubt, would there be any real invention possible? Whatever has been done so far had happened by cobbling together a few things that are available aplenty. If I delve deep into each and every invention to understand the base - on which every admirable monument is erupted, my mind conceives only one similarity between all seemingly diverse things-that is "comprehension".
I know the premise of sanadhana dharma - hinduism- for years, which can be captured in the spirit of drawing parallel between an atom and the universe. Here I should confess that I did not turn to be a hindu after a careful deliberation; I did not enjoy the freedom of choice when it came to selecting my religion; I happen to be a hindu just because of the fact that my ancestors were hindus. But when I became old enough to question the validity of every belonging of mine, when I began to recognize the futility of clinging onto something without any reason, I was deeply hurt by the ignorance of mine about my own religion; So deeply hurt was I, that I immediately started taking steps to dispel my fear of being idiot for a long time; The rites of my religion was deep rooted in my life but not the reasons behind them till that time. I started to scour for ideas that would justify my association with hinduism; I sprang into action to enter into the comfort zone; Once I validate my choices and find that they are immaculate then there would be no need to bow down out of shame when my own conscience questions my intellectual vanity regarding my choice of religion. In my effort to find the answer, I embarked on a journey, throughout which I could not help feeling better and better as the journey to be. I emerged merrier than ever because I validated my association; I can never claim that hinduism is the best because I never spent time understanding other existing religions. But I can say a point with conviction that hinduism is all encompassing intellectual treasure having each and everything in its supreme elegance. I never felt voidness throughout that fascinating experience. That obviated the necessity to think of other set of beliefs- religions.
If the purpose of religion is to make its believers to forget the present and make them happy by allowing them to ponder over supernatural powers, then it should be no better than a bottle of whiskey. But the purpose of religion is to civilise people I believe or rather that is how I would define it. I started worrying about the meaning of the premise of hinduism. The most complex argument I ever faced. "The entire universe is self contained inside an atom". Just because it sounds crazy it is not great. When we encounter an unknown phenomenon, in order to get the grasp of it, it has be expressed in terms of known phenomena. If the supreme unknown phenomenon is expressed in terms of equally unknown things, then there can never be a chance for getting the flawless understanding. But when I derived an analogy from biology, I felt a flash inside. In biology everyone agrees that each and every tissue inherits the information of the entire body of which it is a part. Nobody can deny it now, because it is no longer a fancy concept but has empirical evidence. If that’s the case, why can't the argument- "The universe is self contained in its each atom" - be true?. It is just that, our technology is not advanced enough to bring out the universe contained in each and every atom thereof.
But the thing is, what is the purpose of knowing all? Validating religion and taking pride in our association with it? if a person is well civilized and if he carries out his duties well, there is no need of assistance from religion and concepts thereof. Surprisingly, the above statement is from the beliefs of a religion -hinduism.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Fair trade???
Hello Frenz,
This article on "Fair trade" is all about the so called well civilised society and my perception of the same. Because I am from India, a society of which is being rapidly engulfed by the cancerous growth, most of my opinion would be based on the happenings in India.
As per the current trend in India, "the more India grows, the worse the situation will become". It is not very difficult to conceive the fact that the development in India can be likened to tumors born out of cancer. Where the industries that earn their sustenance from carrying out outsourcing jobs - which account for paltry 2%-hold sway over the society at large;So, there is little chance of everyone being given a fair trade. I am not against the concept of intelligentsia influencing the movement of the society at large if it benefits everyone in the society. But the point is, Is it really fair to allow the cancerous growth to proliferate further to the extent to damage the root of civilization? what on earth makes outsourcing industries as a dangerous one? What sort of action should be taken to prevent the things we don't want to see from happening?
If I hurriedly suggest to abolish the outsourcing industries, it would be no different from gouging out an eye just because the other one is blind. So what could be the pragmatic approach to solve the problem? ofcourse, every possible reasonable thinking would invariably arrive at restoring the light to the other eye. In a country where 80% of the population lives on the incomes mostly derived from agri and agri related fields, the agriculture is being marginalized and the dependants of agri are being driven out of their own profession to which they are emotionally attached. The emotional attachment is the only reason for why they still in the same field even after enduring persistent problems. Ethically speaking, the money earned should be in commensurate with the "work " spent on any field.The term work here means a figure that is assigned after considering contributing forces - inclusive of mental strain, physical effort invested. The above said argument forms the premise of my argument and I hope it would fetch acceptance even from a person who remains with an ounce of morality. But unfortunately the unavailability of the hypothetical figure prevents us from taking any steps having that figure as a basis for fixing the pay scale. But thankfully our intuition will come in handy to understand the veracity of the argument I am gonna put forth.
For a moment, Lets go beyond the limit that has been explored till now, I mean let us get into an era where the "means" to do a work is freely available as chip which can be planted into the human brain. "Means" here may be considered as technical proficiency required to do a work, so effectively peoples' success would ooze from other much needed attributes like focus, dedication, hard work and consistency etc. In that era, employees of outsourcing industries would be financially strapped just like farmers today. which would lead to a reversal of prosperity of people, for simple reason that the pay scale in out souring software industry which causes trouble and turbulence in other sectors, is not an indicator of attributes under consideration, rather, that is much hyped and exaggerated figure which is of no significant importance. This pay scale is only possible because of the discrepancy exists between USD and RS. I confess my ignorance of forces resulting this unfair trade. Now we are in an era where small indigenous companies are mopped up by large ones just because of the existence of money value difference. Definitely, in the era I envisage I've discredited the focus and determination needed to acquire the means to do a job. But, if we consider two persons, one who was not able to continue his/her studies there by became a handicap to get into a software industry but otherwise having all other factors for success and the other one who slipped into an engineering college and consequently into an outsourcing industry, whom a rationale mind want to be successful? undeniably the work to acquire the means is lesser in the latter's case but ironically the latter would be given a royal treatment if he managed to stick around the outsourcing industry for a while. Raising vanity inside our mind based on the pay scale is definitely gonna be short lived.
Perhaps, the main problem in India would be the awful gap between the technological advancements and real time applications. When the advancements fail to percolate through every stratum of society thereby reaching the root of the society, those technological feats are just trash meant to waste some worthy peoples' life time. The appalling nature of the society will only be changed when the yawning gap is traversed. This problem is partly caused by the education system itself but I refrain from commenting on it further in this article.
The main motive of this article is to drive home a point that we are blissful by blindfolding ourselves and shirking away from our responsibilities to bring the light to another eye of the society which is on the brink of blindness. To brighten up our prospects we don't douse the future of our fellow brethren.
Definitely we are not sadists. Are we?
This article on "Fair trade" is all about the so called well civilised society and my perception of the same. Because I am from India, a society of which is being rapidly engulfed by the cancerous growth, most of my opinion would be based on the happenings in India.
As per the current trend in India, "the more India grows, the worse the situation will become". It is not very difficult to conceive the fact that the development in India can be likened to tumors born out of cancer. Where the industries that earn their sustenance from carrying out outsourcing jobs - which account for paltry 2%-hold sway over the society at large;So, there is little chance of everyone being given a fair trade. I am not against the concept of intelligentsia influencing the movement of the society at large if it benefits everyone in the society. But the point is, Is it really fair to allow the cancerous growth to proliferate further to the extent to damage the root of civilization? what on earth makes outsourcing industries as a dangerous one? What sort of action should be taken to prevent the things we don't want to see from happening?
If I hurriedly suggest to abolish the outsourcing industries, it would be no different from gouging out an eye just because the other one is blind. So what could be the pragmatic approach to solve the problem? ofcourse, every possible reasonable thinking would invariably arrive at restoring the light to the other eye. In a country where 80% of the population lives on the incomes mostly derived from agri and agri related fields, the agriculture is being marginalized and the dependants of agri are being driven out of their own profession to which they are emotionally attached. The emotional attachment is the only reason for why they still in the same field even after enduring persistent problems. Ethically speaking, the money earned should be in commensurate with the "work " spent on any field.The term work here means a figure that is assigned after considering contributing forces - inclusive of mental strain, physical effort invested. The above said argument forms the premise of my argument and I hope it would fetch acceptance even from a person who remains with an ounce of morality. But unfortunately the unavailability of the hypothetical figure prevents us from taking any steps having that figure as a basis for fixing the pay scale. But thankfully our intuition will come in handy to understand the veracity of the argument I am gonna put forth.
For a moment, Lets go beyond the limit that has been explored till now, I mean let us get into an era where the "means" to do a work is freely available as chip which can be planted into the human brain. "Means" here may be considered as technical proficiency required to do a work, so effectively peoples' success would ooze from other much needed attributes like focus, dedication, hard work and consistency etc. In that era, employees of outsourcing industries would be financially strapped just like farmers today. which would lead to a reversal of prosperity of people, for simple reason that the pay scale in out souring software industry which causes trouble and turbulence in other sectors, is not an indicator of attributes under consideration, rather, that is much hyped and exaggerated figure which is of no significant importance. This pay scale is only possible because of the discrepancy exists between USD and RS. I confess my ignorance of forces resulting this unfair trade. Now we are in an era where small indigenous companies are mopped up by large ones just because of the existence of money value difference. Definitely, in the era I envisage I've discredited the focus and determination needed to acquire the means to do a job. But, if we consider two persons, one who was not able to continue his/her studies there by became a handicap to get into a software industry but otherwise having all other factors for success and the other one who slipped into an engineering college and consequently into an outsourcing industry, whom a rationale mind want to be successful? undeniably the work to acquire the means is lesser in the latter's case but ironically the latter would be given a royal treatment if he managed to stick around the outsourcing industry for a while. Raising vanity inside our mind based on the pay scale is definitely gonna be short lived.
Perhaps, the main problem in India would be the awful gap between the technological advancements and real time applications. When the advancements fail to percolate through every stratum of society thereby reaching the root of the society, those technological feats are just trash meant to waste some worthy peoples' life time. The appalling nature of the society will only be changed when the yawning gap is traversed. This problem is partly caused by the education system itself but I refrain from commenting on it further in this article.
The main motive of this article is to drive home a point that we are blissful by blindfolding ourselves and shirking away from our responsibilities to bring the light to another eye of the society which is on the brink of blindness. To brighten up our prospects we don't douse the future of our fellow brethren.
Definitely we are not sadists. Are we?
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