Thursday, November 22, 2007

State of Higher Education in India

Stumbled on this article on Outlook.

http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071122&fname=harsh&sid=1

Found this piece of cliched quote and stopped reading further

"If we leave aside the IITs, the IIMs, and some other institutions such as the AIIMs, the Indian Institute of Science, and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, we will find a higher education sector that is increasingly unwilling and unable to bear the weight of the rising expectations of an emerging India. "

Agreed IITs and IIMs are institutes of High reputation which have contributed greatly to the Academic circles and the industry, but there are people from other institutes too who have made some kind of contribution. What about the IISc, the RECs(NITs), the UVCEs and RVCEs of different states, the Delhi university, ISBs, SPJAINs, FMSes etc? and the many numerous schools of a decent reputation?

Enough of cliche. The obsession of maintaining exclusivity of IITs and IIMs have really crippled the higher education system, and limited the infrastructure for many talented students. ( I think this is what the author is cribbing about). 2 lakh people for 2000 seats for IIMs? That sucks really. It presumes the 97 percentiles are not worthy enough compared to the 99s. I do not know if it is the lack of infrastructure, or the mentality of maintaining EXCLUSIVITY that is more prevalent or both.


3 comments:

Dhimant Parekh said...

In this context of maintaining exclusivity, there is also a social networking site launched called eliteindian.com - It proclaims that if you are from the IIT, IIM etc then you are an "elite" and constitute the top rung of the Indian population. Rest all, according to them, are mere props.
Disgusting to use such a positioning I must say.

sarvagnaani said...

I dont know what to say about that statement by the author. Its too generic to be debated about. What does the author mean by weight of 'rising' expectations?what were the expectations earlier?what are they now?and what do you mean by 'emerging india'?which field are we talking abt?and more important..how true is the implied claim that iits, iims and other 'premier' instis are producing grads who can bear this weight?where is the justification for this?
(really too bored and lazy to read the complete article now:D )

coming to the other point..of exclusivity of iits/iims..really..dont you think vote bank politics ask for more such instis?i mean..any politician will gain considerable amt of mileage if he/she can get an iit/iim to his/her state, isnt it? at least..he will be able to impress the ever expanding indian middle class of that state..but we dont see that happening..inspite of all the talks of upgrading recs/starting new iits..what i feel is..its the simple lack of infra..even in the current iits/iims lot of things can/should improve..they are definitely not the best places they can potentialy be..but who cares?as long as it works..dont fiddle with it..

and about the 'elite' indian thing..i dont know if you can make a blanket statement and label it disgusting..come on..admit it..iit/iim tag has a value..and they want to flaunt it..its like..u have a merc in the sea of maruthis and hyundais..and you want to flaunt it and have an exclusive club of merc owners..lets say the club is called elite-merc-indian-owners-club..would that be disgusting? of course not everyone will like the way the eliteindian thing is done..just a different perspective of things..and personally..I find it disgusting :D

GD said...

I found a car in SFO with the nameplate etched out, Alumni - Indian Institute of Technology hehe.

That makes me think - Alumni - Haas Business School? and when HKUST becomes famous, HKUST business School and the best of all will be PESIT Alum. :D

As Dhi pointed out IITs/IIMs are the Sharukh Khans and we are side kicks ;-).. True indeed rite?

Well desperately waiting for a Sir M. V amongst the elite to pop out