Academic Dilemma.
The post and subsequent comments and likes displayed recently on LinkedIn about choice of HR explains the sorry state of Indian education system which sure has become mediocre and is churning out none other than the mediocrat brats in wholesale, who are, as the business houses have been saying for too long, not employable.
It is not their fault as they learned what they were taught back in their institutions of knowledge, which have been ranking low in world university ranking. Knowledge based economies have abundance of universities and infrastructure which is conducive to developments with research facilities to come up with innovative ideas. India may have made strong galloping in the infrastructure but the education sector seems to lag behind miles.
The yardsticks applied for appointments of VCs of statutory universities is that the incumbent must have academic achievement s in scores in the form of publications, research papers, seminars and workshops attendance, and research guidance. Now how this is related in providing academic leadership by them with managerial capabilities when they hold the office makes a case for research. This academic rigmarole is repeated when they appoint Directors of IIMs and IITs and the results? You guessed it.
The Bureaucrats decide the locations of IIMs and IITs. New locations of IIMs are far away from the happening places of industries and commerce. Gaya, Udaipur, Sirmaur and Kashipur are these places where industrial hustling is absent. The choice of these places is beyond one’s imagination.
The Intellectuals sitting in AICTE and UGC have made the system rigid and flexibility is an extinct species. They decide what you study and how much you study. The admissions process, syllabus, number of hours to complete the syllabus is in the hands of these policy makers, who at the cost of their rigidity and rigmarole, and lackadaisical approach, have placed a stigma on graduates as unemployable. What is the role of UGC and AICTE? Are these offices created for these medicratic bureaucratic megalomaniacs to warm the chairs they sit? Has it ever occurred that the periodic review of vision and mission statement is necessary and roles and responsibilities have to be re-examined so as to stay afloat?
And what about second and third rung management and technical institutions and deemed universities in Maharashtra run by sugar barons and politicians? They warm their pockets under the garb of management quota and mint money from admission procedures, exorbitant price of merely few pages of prospectus, gigantic tution fees. Even if you want to make employment application you are required to buy a prescribed format by shelling out not less than a hundred rupee note, even though they are the ones who are in need of manpower. The quality of education at these institutes is thrown to the winds.
The brand of IIM is slowly vanishing in the thin air as they do not have full time directors. The decision makers have seen that the institution falls down to its low. Same is with IITs where additional responsibilities make a director shuttle between two institutes.
The employment form to head these institutions circulated by MHRD is worth looking at. It does not ask you your research and connection in the corporate world nor about brand positioning of the Institute. This form is highly scholastic in its nature and emphasizes more about academic achievements.
Ministry of Human Resource Development should constitute a peer review committee consisting of people drawn from corporate and academics with equal numbers. This review be done every three years to find out what has been done in the field of knowledge creation and its applications. Non performance be penalized.
Here I would like to narrate what an American scientist said at Indian Science Congress last year. Nobel Laureate David J Gross from the US was probably the newsmaker of the Congress. He spoke from his heart and even took on Modi’s pet Make in India mission. “What will you make without discovering and inventing in India?” Gross said. “Every year, prime ministers come to the Indian Science Congress and promise that more money will be given to research and development. But nothing happens.”
He asked Indians to change the way they work and think. He wanted the rigid and bureaucratic system to be shunted out. He said that if basic science has to thrive, then India needs to revamp its thought process. “Invent. Discover and then Make in India,” Gross said.
Dr Satish.
