I woke up in the morning to find in my inbox an email by Prof. V.K. Tripathi (VKT). The email commented upon the recommendations of the Yashpal Committee report on higher education in India.
Here is the Yashpal Committee report.
Here are VKT's comments.
In his comments VKT addressed the dichotomy that haunts every part of India. There are people who go to expensive "English-medium" high schools (like I did) who have a perspective on their careers and ambitions. But at the same time India abounds with students who do not get access to good schools. Their language abilities are also limited. But many of these not-so-good students come to IITs - the hallmark of technical education in India and a world-brand.
So the professors in these esteemed institutions are faced with a dilemma. Their best students can perform miracles if properly stimulated and challenged. But pursuing such a vision can be almost lethal for the career of the not-so-good students, who will lag behind and even fail classes if the material is too advanced. Contradictory though it might seem, this problem is not insoluble. In this post I will propose a change in the IIT system that can potentially solve this problem. Let me begin.
I have recently come to a conclusion in my discussions with Sumeet about education in India that our major problem lies in the fact that our teachers in school expect everyone to be super-intelligent and extra-smart. Emphasis is always laid on constant perseverance to reach that ultimate level of academic achievement. The person who comes second in class is in some way not as good as the person who comes first.
This means that our system is catered to only the best amongst us. The average student's self respect is compromised so many times in his high-school life that he loses confidence in himself, his talents and his abilities. No doubt, the best of our people are comparable to the best in the entire world, but that leaves out a huge chunk of our population. This is the main reason why India lags behind the developed world in infrastructure, education, health care and almost everything that is a necessary ingredient of a modern life.
This attitude dominates the culture in IITs as well. The average student by this time has taken recourse to unfair means in order to survive in this harsh system and has lost all his academic integrity. The tale just continues. In an attempt to achieve a motley mix of including everyone and yet maintaining a "high" standard, IITs are inviting a catastrophe.
Our freshman physics course in IIT Delhi (that is supposed to be taken by all students) was taught out of the Electrodynamics textbook by D.J. Griffiths. Here at MIT, a course of that level is taught to Physics majors in their 3rd/4th year. Our freshman math courses covered analysis and algebra of the level that makes up a major chunk of the average MIT Math major's undergrad curriculum. The freshman chemistry course in MIT dealt with stuff we had covered in preparation for the JEE. Yes, the smart guys triumph - but majority of the people either fail or start disliking learning itself.
But here is where we start seeing the solution. There are people at MIT who are also superior to the average level. They have already tackled with that physics, that analysis and that algebra. But they have the option of not doing those courses. They have enough freedom in course choice and flexibility in the degree structure that they can pass out of classes that are compulsory. The system caters to the average person but leaves enough space for the smart people to develop their full potential.
If IITs develop enough flexibility in the curriculum and give enough choices to their students, their is no reason why we should be faced with a problem like we do. That of course has to be accompanied by a down-tuning in the level of our courses. The general curriculum should provide a quality education to the average student at a level he can understand.
I think that some professors in IITs would inevitably regret a "loss of pride" in down-tuning the course level, but that is their problem and insignificant for the society.
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4 comments:
Raghu .. Well I fell the same I am in Univeristy of Cambridge and during my stay in ETH Zurich these days and get aoppurtunity to chat with local students here
The majot change needed in our mentality that we tend to cover all huge chunk of syllabus and in this rat race of covering as many things as possible we land up in loosing the creativity ... the innovative nature of mind and finally make a brain that get good in following a specified path but loosing the origniality of creating new ideas .
I defnitley suggest this that all we need is to give a ample space in our curriculum for the mind to think and analyse rather than covering huge chunk of syllabus .
I have studied in local schools and went to Government College Ludhiana for 11 and 12 and subsequently studied in panjab Univeristy for 3 three years in Physics and one year in IIT Physics and found studies in IIT mundane .. hence left it and joined masters ijn ETH Zurich
Coming from ' sarkari schools' I have seen people more brillinat than me in level of understanding but the lack in them was language skills and then pressure to COVER AS MUCH SYLLABUS as possible .
You know the major reason why this happens is that at the high school level in the US, the education isnt that challenging... and that's because the majority of the high school graduates in the US do not become doctors or engineers, which is unfortunately the case in India. As a result, US students do all of their learning in undergrad and go through a steep learning curve there, ending up probably better than what general undergraduate pass outs from the IIT's are.
Since there is so much pressure on Indian children being doctors/engineers (lets talk about middle/upper class here) which require sufficiently high knowledge of the sciences, our educational system is highly biased towards the sciences. Making it more flexible is a solution to the problem, but I'm very sure even if given the flexibility students would opt/forced to opt for the sciences and gain advanced knowledge in it.
That is precisely the reason why a US university education system cant work in India, the one in which you choose your major because 99% of them are gonna end up choosing(forced to choose) either CS or EE.
We're talking of a mob mentality problem here.... its much deeper than one would think
Rohan, I could not agree with you more. The "mob mentality" is a major problem.
I should have been clearer in the post. What I tried to address was the dichotomy between the good and the not-so-good that we face in our institutions, especially IITs. But, I understand that these two problems are not independent.
Atleast we can simplify our curricula and give sufficient independence to the advanced students. This way atleast the vast majority of people who come to science and engineering will not get demoralized.
Raghu, what you suggest looks like a practical solution to the problem. But very adeptly you commented that at the end of the day this change could lead to "a loss of pride" of some authoritative people.
You remember our discussion about individuals having lots of money but unfortunately don't know how to spend it judiciously. Now I guess, if someone tries to teach them how to spend their money, it would certainly hurt their pride. It’s the same pride-and-ego problem!!!
The fact that I am trying to pick up is that in India, people put things in place for once and they don't feel the heat to change them. And it becomes a stubborn practice. I guess IIT's copied their academic system from the elite universities abroad, but to mark the originality they simply added more rigor and inflexibility.
Most of the things in India are politically motivated so it is almost impossible for a less authoritative pragmatic figure to influence the laws. And this is the biggest irony of the largest democracy in the world. Here, public opinion is invariably ruled by the self-interests of some.
You must think of conveying this idea to the relevant authorities, because if they apply even a part of it, that would bring a phenomenal change in the present day system of IIT's.
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