Education system of India

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.