|
During
my recent travel to India with my family, I came
across repeated warnings from prominent
educationalists associated with Indian
educational system. Indeed India's production of
professionals is phenomenal. With over 300
universities and 15,600 colleges spewing out 2.5
million graduates each year, in terms of the
volume of productions India trails behind only
the United States and most recently China.
Each year India produces 350,000 engineers,
twice the numbers produced by the United States.
According to Professor Kaushik Basu, an eminent
Professor of Economics at Cornell University,
U.S.A, in terms of research and the purely
academic disciplines, such as Mathematics,
Physics and literature, India is beginning to
trail in comparison not just to other countries
but its own past performance. The real benefits
of solid professional training are there for all
to see. These shape a citizenry's mind,
fertilise a nation's intellect and provide the
milieu out of which emerge, engineers, medical
doctors, lawyers and computer technicians. If
India is to be a global economic powerhouse it
is essential to nurture this pure knowledge
sector. A recent evaluation of universities and
research institutes all over the world,
conducted by a Shanghai University, has not a
single Indian University in the World's top 300
-China has altogether six.
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
comes in somewhere in the top 400 and IIT,
Kharagpur, makes an appearance after that. It
may at first seem hard to imagine what the
answer could be, since our Universities function
much the way they did in earlier times. What we
need today the kind of initiative that led to
the founding of the IIT'S to remove the
bureaucratic stumbling blocks for the infusion
of private funding into the universities.
In my opinion, the government has to allow them
to bid for the best researchers otherwise in the
long run India will lose further ground in
producing talent and encourage mediocrity.
About the Author:
Professor Syed Waris Shere has been teaching in
Canadian Universities and College since 1964.
Professor Shere has authored several books
including "FUTURE OF POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION".
He is a former resident of Patna and was
educated at St. Xavier's and Patna Collegiate
School.
|
Comments: |
|
No comment so far. |
|
Discussion on this topic is now
closed. |
Return to previous Page |
