http://www.thehindu.com/
Professor, teach thyself
Markandey Katju
Very little money is spent on primary and middle schools, particularly
in rural areas where the foundation of education is laid. Photo: P.V.
Sivakumar
Our tertiary education system does not serve the masses
I was at Jawaharlal Nehru University recently with some of the top senior academicians in Delhi, before dinner.
I
was told that the budget of the University Grants Commission was
Rs.41,000 crore in the Five Year plan and the annual budget of JNU was
about Rs.150 crore.
In my usual blunt way I said,
“How has this benefited the Indian masses? It seems that the huge funds
being ploughed into higher education in India are for the benefit of
foreign countries and to give you professors huge salaries and fine
houses to live in rather than to benefit the Indian people.”
This sparked off a lively debate. Some of the professors tried to refute my statement, but I stuck to my guns.
I
said that most of the money spent on education in India went to the
institutes of higher education like the IITs and universities, and very
little money was spent on primary and middle schools, particularly in
rural areas, where the foundation of education was laid. There are very
few facilities such as proper seats, electricity, books, classrooms, etc
in these primary or middle schools, whereas the institutes of higher
education are given huge funds and have very good facilities,
state-of-the-art campuses, air-conditioning, etc.
I then gave a few
examples to prove what I said:
1. I once went
to a village about 40 km from Allahabad (my native city) to meet a
farmer friend of mine, with whom I had studied at Allahabad University.
At
his home I met one of his sons who had passed class seven and promoted
to class eight in his high school in the village. I asked him to bring
his class 7 mathematics book and solve a few simple problems. He could
not do so. I wondered how he had been promoted when he could not solve
simple class 7 problems. I then solved those simple problems, and asked
him to attempt the other problems in the lesson. He was obviously an
intelligent boy, because having learnt how to solve the simple problems,
he proceeded to solve the rest.
At this I asked him, “Did your teacher not teach you all this?” He replied, “Master Sahib thekedari karne lage hain, aur doosre master sahib class lene aate naheen hai” (the teacher has become a contractor, and the next teacher does not come to take classes”).
2.
I went to a reputed intermediate college in Allahabad and was told that
in a section in Class 11 there are 250 students. I was shocked. Under
the rules there should not be more than 40 students in a class. What
teaching can possibly be done in a class of 250 students? I also learnt
that in some of the sections at Allahabad University there are over 300
students, and there is not even place for a student to sit.
In
view of this, much of the real education takes place in private
coaching institutes, or at the residence of teachers who make much more
money there than in their institutions. As a result, these teachers
evince little interest in teaching in their institutions, and a student
who does not join the coaching (paying high fees) finds it difficult to
pass.
3. In many of the staffrooms of our
educational institutions, teachers, instead of discussing academic
matters, often discuss petty politics, often of a casteist nature or
matters pertaining to their service conditions. Senior professors often
try to promote lecturers of their own caste, whether they have merit or
not.
4. Teachers are often appointed not on
merit but on extraneous considerations, like political connection,
caste, etc. They are appointed on contract basis. In some States, “shikshamitra” who have been appointed on a salary of Rs.1,500 a month have no degree or teachers’ training qualification.
5. The
level of intellect of many teachers is low, because many of them have
not been appointed on merit but on extraneous considerations. To give an
example, when I was a judge of Allahabad High Court I had a case
relating to a service matter of a mathematics lecturer in a university
in Uttar Pradesh. Since the teacher was present in court I asked him how
much one divided by zero is equal to. He replied, “Infinity.” I told
him that his answer was incorrect, and it was evident that he was not
even fit to be a teacher in an intermediate college. I wondered how had
he become a university lecturer (In mathematics it is impermissible to
divide by zero. Hence anything divided by zero is known as an
indeterminate number, not infinity).
Brain drain
I
gave them many more such examples, and told the senior academicians at
JNU that huge amounts of money of the Indian taxpayer is spent on the
IITs and other institutes of higher education, but the graduates of
these institutes usually take up jobs in foreign countries. This results
in brain drain. Thus, while Indians pay taxes which go towards
educating our bright students, the benefit of their education goes to
foreign countries and not to the Indian people. These foreign countries
benefit because higher education in their own countries is very
expensive, so they have to pay only a fraction of that amount to get our
bright young students.
I posed them another
question: the test of every system is one simple question. Does it raise
the standard of living of the masses or not? I said that the huge
amount of money being spent on higher education in India is not raising
the standard of living of the Indian masses because over 75 per cent of
Indians live in dire poverty. There is massive unemployment,
skyrocketing prices, huge problems of health care, housing, etc.
Apart
from that, I asked them how many Nobel laureates have our universities
and other institutes of higher education produced. Hardly any.
In
many American universities one will find half a dozen Nobel laureates.
Australia, which has a population of about 25 million, has 180
academicians who have an F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society), while
India, with a population of 1,200 million, has only about 20. So what
are the achievements of our scientists and other intellectuals? It is
only when they go to the United States or Canada or Europe that they
achieve anything.
What is the quality of research
work done by our academicians in institutes of higher learning?
Unfortunately it is abysmally low and does not benefit the Indian
people. Their publications are mostly poor, and done only to improve
their CVs in order to get jobs.
The purpose of
education is to help raise the standard of living of the masses. But in
India it seems that its purpose is to raise the standard of living of a
handful of people who get jobs as teachers, particularly in institutions
of higher education.
I must say to the credit of the
professors assembled there that they did not take any of my remarks
personally. I told them that I had no intention to insult them but was
only voicing my genuine grievance about the educational system in India,
and the need to make it more beneficial to the masses.
At the end it was agreed that my views required serious debate which hopefully shall be held at JNU or elsewhere soon.
(Justice Markandey Katju is chairman of the Press Council of India.)
No comments:
Post a Comment