India is a developing country.

In many ways India, like China, has some very good and progressive universities. Indias technical colleges are of world standard (or better) and as produced the Indian software industry.

However, the size and cultural diversity of India, along with high levels of poverty in many places means that these top universities are contrasted with some very low standards.

Education needs to address.

Social inequalities. Gender inequaltiies Changing needs in India's economy (economic growth means there is a greater need for job ready graduates in new growth industries). 3 years ago

In India, we say that IITs and IIMs are the best institutions. To get admissions in these institutions, one has to do lots of hard work all throughout days and nights. Those who gets admissions in these institutions, its a boon to them. But if we consider the global level, where do these institutions stands? According to THE TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION only 2 institutions in India are among the top 200 world universities. They are IIT-Delhi at 154th rank and IIT-Bombay at 174th rank and no other universities from India, whereas in United States, there are 58 universities in that list and Harvard University at the top most. In UK, there are 29 universities, in china there 8 and in Japan there 9 universities.

Although it is said that Indian intelligence and talent has been applauded worldwide, we have only 2 institutions on the list. Why is it so? What about other IITs, IIMs, NIFT, NIT and other colleges/universities? What is lagging?

There was a apt joke to describe the situation of Indian education system. A student is sitting idly in class while others are furiously jotting down the professors words. The professor asked him why he wasnt taking notes. The student replies, but I already have it from my grandfather.

What Im trying to tell is we are following the same algorithm again and again and expecting a wonderful result. If we want to get the desired output, we have make changes in that algorithm according to present situation and execute it. Or else we will be keping on saying that India is a developing country. To put in a nutshell India really do needs serious reforms in its education system.

India needs reforms from the basic itself. The preferred choice of learning is memorizing facts. Here to judge the student's talent has only one parameter i.e. percentage in board exam. So students just mug up and indeed Indian education is spoon feeding.

The Indian education and social systems are very hard on kids and completely ignore their feelings, opinions and ambitions. Kids are pushed to study from the age of 3 and non-performers are treated as dolts and ostracized by parents and society. My opinion is that our education should be all-round developer. It should be based on creative rather than mugging. Practical or visualize education should be promoted.

In Europe, they have IB (International Baccalaureate) schools in which schools of Romania, Czechoslovakia, France, and Germany are associated with it. Children are from different countries but they all appear in IB system. Here we are talking about different countries. And in India we have CBSE, State boards, Matriculation. Why cant we have a unified system? Indeed, the quality of education in state board is not at all good. Because 73% of students fail in state board.

Also our HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal said that he wants to scrap 10th board exam. We should be proud that we can say India is in safe hands like Mr.Kapil sibal who takes initiatives to do reforms in the system. But what I feel about this is that scraping of 10th board exam is not a good option. Exams are good but the style of exams we have now should be changed. Its just mugging and too much of pressure on students.

When we internet with almost all the information why the students should mug up all the information?

Make the subjects case study based, allow open book style exams, facilitate group based projects, prepare students for real live challenges, let there be industry-academia collaborations. The interests or hobbies of students should be identified and they should be encouraged to pursue them. If students are constantly pressed against the wall to get above 90% to get into a good college or university or professional college, then how can they produce more R&D ideas, we dont produce enough inventions also.

In that Japan, peoples are good at embedded systems, robotics, Etc... This is because they are working, while studying. This makes them having more practical knowledge. Also their system is practical based not more theoretical based. We should have such a practical systems.

The most important reform that is needed is removal of reservations based on caste. It is so disheartening to see the caste and religion being dragged into every inch of educational system. Also, why so much reliance on IITs and IIMs? It is the very Indian mentality that the system is crippled. Like we rely on Sachin Tendulkar in cricket, we rely on these institutions. Before giving them so much credit, one should think how much money and political will is being pumped into these institutions compared to ordinary universities. Give the same attention to many other universities and IITs and IIMs will become a thing of past.

There is lack of proper infrastructure, poor technology, poor quality of libraries in almost all college/universities in India.

India, with over 300 universities and 15,600 colleges spewing out 2.5 million graduates each year. There are many graduates including engineers who remain unemployed. Yet, a study by NASSCOM and McKinsey indicates a possible shortage of 500,000 persons, in the IT industry alone, in 2010. The key problem is employability: only about 30% of graduating engineers fit the needs of the IT industry; it is even smaller (less than 20%) in the case of ordinary graduates sought by the BPO industry.

What if major Indian companies like Tata, Infosys, Wipro, then top BPOs, Top media & entertainment companies etc started their own education institutions. If this happens then it would be a lot easier for students to choose and remain committed to a particular profession. Students will then have well defined career options. They can plan their future. Students need not hunt for projects and internships and even companies can get benefitted. The key element of this model is neither privatization nor corporatization; rather, it is competition. It is competition that has propelled the outstanding success of our telecom, airline, banking and automobile industries.

India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and so is India's education system. You can buy admission to a higher educational institute by donating money irrespective of the qualification of the candidate. Also, cheating during the test, as well as falsifying the research data is the norm of life in many educational institutes. India is far behind in quality of mass education as compare to the west. A few institutes like IIT cannot help India to compete globally, if India's educational system stays corrupt. It is the high time for India to overhaul the system to survive in the highly competitive global economy.

Affirmative action should be in the form of extra help for social and economically backwards through special classes, online classes, nutrition supplementation, financial help, study material provision and study rooms or library facilities. Reservation should be phased out. What I discussed in this article is just about the creamy layer. But 70% of population lies in rural areas, where the quality is even very worse. Many students cant even afford an education. They go household work to meet

their daily expenses. And the literary rate in India is just 61% taking 147th rank.

-Priyabrata Ghorai Posted by Priyabrata Ghorai at 3:53 PM 0 comments:

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Education is the basic thing which is required for any countrys children. It is the educa -tion which plays its part in the development of economy of any country. Although the Government of India is taking some measures in improving the education system in India yet it needs serious reforms if the countrys demographic dividend is to pay off. In our country, there are many groups who cannot have access to education due to various factors related to socio-economic status, low incomes, gender or disabilities. There is tremendous need to improve access to higher education in the country. In the 21st century, knowledge is the most valuable resource, long-term

success of our future generation is based on its ability to innovate and adapt.

The reforms does not mean by doing away the Xth class board examinations only, India requires multiple changes and development in our education system, right from our courses to be taught in the Universities, to quality of teachers all these requires to be modified as per the changing scenarios and requirement of the industries. In our colleges some of the courses being taught still consist of those chapters/subjects which have been long ago removed from the world curriculum and they have become items of the past. Mckinsey in one of his study has said that a mere 15% of our finance graduates and 25% of our engineering graduates are employable. In fact, around 83% of our graduates do not have industry skills. All these things are to be considered at the highest levels.

This year as many as 505 students who got an opportunity to study in the premier engineering institutes, like those of IITs, did the unthinkable this year. Such trend needs thorough analysis. The government is planning the creation of 30 Central Universities including 16 on the basis of one Central University (CU) in each of the uncovered states- and 14 new CUs aiming at international standards. Before opening of these Universities it must be considered that all these universities have the ultra modern infrastructure in all respects. Our education should be porous and produce future generations of contemporary problem solvers. Higher education is seen as an engine of economic development. Yash Pal Committee Report on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education points out that the Indian Higher education system lacks a cross-disciplinary approach. The committees recommendation comes in the larger context of creating new knowledge.

Most of the educationists agreed that the exam oriented system needed to be substituted by a system of continuous assessment through which individual progress can be monitored. Our students are still indulging the rote method, i.e., they work during the last two months mugg up the courses and go for the exams. There is no development of the brain vis--vis the course which they have been taught. They want spoon feeding even if they are in graduate or sometimes at post graduate courses what to talk of secondary level. We must dispense with these habits and must infuse in them the self learning habits which can generate curiosity and make them life long learners

Primary and secondary education reform should be India's top priority

jayanta chatterjee Monday, 03 Nov 2008 18:11 UTC There were only 20 universities and 500 colleges in the Indian subcontinent (including Bangladesh and Pakistan) in 1947, the year of Indian independence. Now there are about 376 universities and 17,700 colleges in India only, many with world class physical infrastructure. Many private research institutes are also coming up on a regular basis. The only Nobel prize for India (Indian citizen at the time of the award) in science for C. V. Raman (1930, University of Calcutta) also came in that era. We also had many world class scientists during that time (e.g Satyen Bose, J. C. Bose,

Homi Bhaba etc). Now India is the second fastest growing in the world and third largest economy in Asia with huge budget in so-called education and research. But we do not have any world class scientist (who has a slightest chance to get Nobel Prize in science) in India, as per a survey published in a reputed Bengali magazine, Desh, sometime ago. We see huge uproar when previous government wanted to introduce accountability in some elite institutes like IIM or IITs but we never see a fraction of that excitement among educated middle class people or our political masters to reform primary and secondary education although our primary and secondary education system, the backbone of our country, is in a pathetic shape. Our middle class people, who can not afford to send their kids abroad (like our socio-political elites) but dream to have a better, more powerful and comfortable life for their kids (and to them through their kids) do not allow any meaningful reform of primary and secondary education since independence. Our current education system selectively discards talented students with inquisitiveness, ability to ask questions and dream to do something challenging, something better for the society. Now we only produce private tuition and coaching enabled, mugging-up grade technicians who are great to do routine jobs (as in IT or BT) or imitating others (mainly true for Indian R&D sector in any branch of science and in any industry), but not capable of doing original research, despite of having many world class physical infrastructure, huge budget and some so-called elite institutes. My recent experience with many graduate students form some high profile Indian institutes/universities indicate that the trend to emphasize on database type knowledge, quiz type information and fascination with techniques (not science as such) are still highly prevalent. No wonder India is among the least innovative nations in the world. Quality of Indian science education and research is going down at an alarming rate since independence, despite of huge increase in funding (1, 2, 3 and Balaram, P. (2002). Science in India: Signs of Stagnation. Current Science 82, 193-194.). We need to invest much more and have an intensive and proper supervision of primary and high school education than wrongly focusing on higher education and research at the top level, at this time. Recently passed Right to education bill is a step towards the right direction. But here again we need to remember that many such great policies hardly achieve anything in reality and only limited within government files and the money ends up in the pockets of few selected people. Whatever money we spend on higher education and research is not going to give us any novel knowledge or technological edge unless we have right candidate behind the costly machines we buy. Now we produce mainly

technicians, not scientists or technocrats and feel proud to export such raw materials to manpower-starved developed countries (be it IT or BT, the two main pillars of Indian economy today). This might lead to some degree of prosperity in the short term but we are going to loose in a big way in the long run unless we totally overhaul our basic education system at primary and high school level. Its useless to cut the roots and then water on the top.