Our honorable president has been talking a lot about our education system these days. His focal point has been the poor performance of our institutes in the recently published QS and times higher education rankings. Not even a single institute featured in top 200! Highest ranked is IIT-D at 222! He says that we should improve our rankings. His suggestions include - understanding the parameters considered by the ranking agencies and working on them, focusing on research papers, changing the curriculum etc. They all are fine but they form just the tip of the iceberg.
The real problem(s) lie in the attitude of students and faculties. I mean how can we expect good performance when,
a. Most of the teachers talk only about placements and nothing about knowledge.
b. Students study just a night before the tests.
c. Most students just want to pass and very less want to excel.
d. Everyone looking for shortcuts and no one really wants go in depth. Just the face value!
e. Institutes talk about feedback, make the students fill some forms and later throw them in the bin.
f. In the name of research work, plagiarism takes centre stage and originality goes out of the window. And the ones evaluating give them the green signals. Worst case scenario - when such papers are rewarded! Same with many important assignments and projects which form some critical aspects of the present curriculum.
g. A student finds his interest in a subject but is made to read tons of extras...that's why no Einstein in the country!
a. Most of the teachers talk only about placements and nothing about knowledge.
b. Students study just a night before the tests.
c. Most students just want to pass and very less want to excel.
d. Everyone looking for shortcuts and no one really wants go in depth. Just the face value!
e. Institutes talk about feedback, make the students fill some forms and later throw them in the bin.
f. In the name of research work, plagiarism takes centre stage and originality goes out of the window. And the ones evaluating give them the green signals. Worst case scenario - when such papers are rewarded! Same with many important assignments and projects which form some critical aspects of the present curriculum.
g. A student finds his interest in a subject but is made to read tons of extras...that's why no Einstein in the country!
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h. In the name of "Just we are doing this!", some institutes bring in absolutely crap stuff without even consulting the most important stakeholders - the students! This leads to a lot of wastage of resources - particularly time! And of course no interest whatsoever.
i. In the name of having a broad-based basket of subjects, the number of subjects go up - eating up time unnecessarily - burdening the students by making them have more than they can chew!
j. These days the institutes in the name of having a student-centric approach burden them with loads of responsibility without prior guidance...like asking a small boy to catch a snake... fatal stuff indeed..
k. It took NCERT (primary and secondary levels which form the base) about 6 decades to change the course material! Not staying up to date..
l. Focus is just on marks and degrees...knowledge again missing! Fact is that in our country degrees are being sold....really unfortunate!
We can go on and on! Add some more if you want to....
It's important to take up this matter but it's equally important to take it right. Our President should understand the real problems after all he too was and still is a bright student!
