For the past few months, we have been hearing a lot in the debate on reservations for OBCs in institutions for higher education. And also a lot on inclusion, or rather, exclusion of creamy layer.
Many people, leaders and experts have voiced their opinions on these issues. But one issue has largely escaped our notice. The issue is the quality of so called higher education in other institutions all over the country. Regarding the fore mentioned issue of reservation every one, except a very few, have argued and discussed on how much of the cake a particular section of the population is entitled to. But very few have thought of how to increase the size of the cake. No, increasing the size of the cake, here, doesn't mean just increasing the number of seats in those institutions, it also means increasing the quality of education in other institutions.
Almost every one agrees that even after more than fifty years of policy of reservation, much hasn't changed regarding the social and economical status of those concerned. But then, nor has the quality of higher education in general. If anything, with increase in demand, the quality has actually fallen over years. True the economic status of India has improved. But perhaps, that is because of the effective utilisation of our resources and not because of any tremendous change in the quality of education.
Even today, education means marks. True, marks serve as a very good bench mark to gauge the performance of students and to some extent, that of teachers. But, they aren't what the whole of education is. Unfortunately, many institutions haven't realised this. By and large, the greater purpose of education, which I feel is "to help an individual know about himself, the world around him; to make one realise his own strengths and weaknesses and to strive to better his strength and lessen his weaknesses" is being ignored. Luckily for me, my school education has helped me know about myself and my world. It also helped me discover my strengths and weaknesses. But my professional education (Engineering) hasn't really helped me work on my strengths and weaknesses.
No stress is being laid on Imagination, Innovation & Invention and self discovery.
Even more appalling thing is that, a few sections or branches of education are being are totally ignored. Take for instance science. These days science seems to have been forgotten all together in many regions along with humanities. No one taking the sciences in +1 and +2 are any more interested in doing M.Sc. and B.Sc. All they want is to become an Engineer or a Doctor. The necessity of basic life sciences and research is being ignored. All attention seems to be on Tech and MBA. Of late, interesting things are happening in technical education too. Earlier key stress used to be on practical knowledge with sound basics. But with mushrooming of tech institutes,(yes mushrooming) even basic infra structure like labs and libraries are not being provided.. We do need more institutions. But they shouldn't be allowed to come up in a hap hazard way without proper control. Because of this students are lacking proper practical knowledge of things that they are expected to do later in their profession. For example, even though I am a third year student in Electrical Engineering, I still don't exactly know how a motor works. Another reason for this is severe shortage of staff equipped with proper knowledge tools to teach us (but then, again, I'm lucky to be studying in a college with staff. But not every one is as lucky). And with the advent and success of IT, even the theoretical knowledge is being lost. Every one talks of Soft Skills and Personality development, which should have been an integral part of education in the first place. And here, in AP, every student is expected to be more proficient at C and C++ than their core subjects. Any how core jobs are exotic. Today IT & ITES maybe our forte. But don't we need o stress on other areas too? Especially when we dream of being a developed nation as soon as possible! Don't we need to set all this right.
Fee in IITs and our colleges are about same. We may not be entitled to have the kind staff and facilities they have. Nor can we even dream of their job offers and fat pay checks. But don't we require basic amenities like labs and Internet. There are still colleges which forbid their students from using email in college. All these issues should be addressed very soon , along with the rest of the issues concerning education. I still don't have an idea about who is responsible for this situation. Who ever it is, I only hope that they realise the situation set things right as soon as possible.
"We institutions of higher education which help us realise our full potential. We need those institutions that give us a chance to be ourselves. We need institution where gets to experiment on new things, where one gets enough time to explore some new avenues of life, where we get a chance to Imagine, Innovate & Invent!"
