Higher Education....A Royal Mess

In the previous two posts I recounted my nephew's experiences in trying to get through various hurdles so that he could pursue higher education in the engineering stream.

I have been interacting with many friends, parents of teens in similar age group, a few teachers and students who have just completed their engineering studies. The emerging picture is very confusing. I was aghast at the state of affairs and it will take more than a Kapil Sibal to even guage the extent of the problem before he can attempt to set it right.

Entire focus of the system is to eliminate and choose just a few with the requisite marks. The argument that is often made is the sheer number of students who aspire to be engineers. It is believed that neither can educational facilities be created to provide engineering education to say a million students nor are there adequate opportunities for so many engineers.


On reflection, many questions keep cropping up in my mind. I have no immediate answers but it is important that we collectively as a nation find the answers.

1. Expansion of top class education facilities to increase student intake by a multiple,
2. Facilitating the creation of professional faculty and sustained upgradation of the existing one,
3. Constantly updating syllabus and teaching methods,
4. Increasing industry - academia interaction (Probably happening in a few post-graduate streams),
5. Increasing focus on "frugal engineering" and "relevant low cost technologies"
6. Facilitate setting up of advanced engineering industries in India such that adequate opportunities are available for these students. A case in point is ISRO is facing an acute manpower crunch and we have not been able to create a steady supply line of engineers for this institution. Further, most IIT students seek opportunities outside India or take up consulting jobs.
   

It is not difficult to do this but we always seem to offer the same excuse that "resources are scarce. Just as we seem to find money for defence and other important areas, why can we not accord the same priority to education. After all this investment pays off by ensuring all round development in the country.

We have let matters remain unattended till the "dam has burst" and now resort to adhoc knee jerk reactions by setting up new IITs (which was prompted more as an answer to the reservation controversy) all of a sudden or trying to rush through the "Foreign Universities" bill facilitating their entry into India.

I believe this is a subject that needs serious and constant attention and resources. It is important that the chronic problems affecting higher education are identified and a clear roadmap set as to how these will be tackled. Only then will we have a vibrant education sector that will serve the requirements of the country.

Travails continued....

We left the previous post where the protagonist was undergoing training at a coaching class to appear for various entrance examinations. Objective: to gain admission to an engineering degree course at a "decent" college / institute. Normal ambition of a very normal Indian lad with stars in his eyes and with an above average intellect.

Mind you, all this is in addition to attending college + practicals for the State Board HSC examinations. Now you get an idea of "moving the mountain" phase in the life of a sixteen year old.

Let us see how the year progresses..

Coaching Class:

One thing I missed adding. Sixty students crammed on uncomfortable benches for six - seven hours at a stretch. Hey they are cattle but humans with simple goal in life. But commerce is supreme and an extra dozen students is obviously good for the bottom line.

Life is good. Anyway, there is no guarantee on results and it does not matter whether students pass or fail. Many of these institutes just pay obscene money and some students may be tempted to endorse them.


Examinations:

Mercifully exams are a one day affair but the filling up of examination forms, online / manual submission and getting the examination hall admit card is a trying affair. The whole process is meant to wear your patience thin.

You also have to be lucky to get an examination center near your place of residence or else a twenty - thirty kilometre trudge to the examination centre is guaranteed. The wretched may be allotted an examination centre at Pune / Nashik....and both are atleast 200 kms away.

The list of examinations is also impressively long....IIT-JEE, AIEEE, BITS, Maharashtra CET, Vellore, Coimbatore, Manipal, unaided colleges, and I do not know the rest...as the nephew did not bother about many of them.

Fortunately, there is enough time between two competitive entrance exams. BITS even gives you the flexibility of choosing a date of your choice and it is an online test. You actually leave the place knowing your marks and also, perhaps, whether your fate is sealed or whether there is still hope.


Results Stage:

Yipee....its results time and an end to a long year of hard work...or..is it just the begining of a new tense phase. The toppers and failures are the most peaceful, whilst the "in-betweens" are tossed around like veggies in a salad.

All results are online which means you save face if the results are poor. One can buy half a day by saying access to servers is very slow but not much beyond that.

This settles once for where you are in the rat race. Extended Merit Lists and scores beyond 10,000 means very little scope.


Admissions Stage:

Most likely a student would stand a good chance in multiple institutions and it would be unwise to close the doors on any opportunity just yet.

This means one has to keep track of all schedules running in parallel. This would put any Operation Research specialist to shame.

Online submissions, mock counselling, trial placements, merit lists, counselling lists, first list, second list and so on form part of an elaborate process. I understand this has been streamlined and tweaked over the last couple of years. It is not so much a problem now. Great use of technology...I must say.

Once your name appears in one or more lists, factors like stream allotted, institute and location become important. Ragging is another factor playing on minds and I was wily nily drawn into an animated discussion on this subject.

This phase is currently on and should play itself out in the next two weeks.

More on this as the days pass on. This whole drama that is being played out tends to get more complex every year. There are many questions that arise in my mind and I am disturbed that such an important area has been dealt with in a very lackadaisical way.

Travails of an Aspiring Engineer

This holds true of any student aspiring to a decent higher education in any field. Engineering is the subject matter of this post because I have a ring side view of the struggle my nephew and all those around him undergo to get admission to an engineering course in a decent college this season.

We, in India, accord a very high priority to education and millions view it as a passport to a better life. We have grown up in trying circumstances and frugality has been a way of life and this is a chance to break some ceilings. We have nearly a million plus students wanting to opt for specialised education

Now let us pan back to the life of a student who has opted for a science stream education with an intent to become an engineer.

After completing the FYJC (First Year Junior College - 11th standard to us old foggies) exams, life is lived in defined phases and I will attempt to recount this momentous journey.

Pre-Coaching Class Stage:

Ahh...comparing notes to see which class would be best. The early planners were relocating to Kota (Rajasthan) which seems to have acquired an awesome reputation to get you straight into IIT or so is all-round popular belief.

The others - nephew included - were left with the home choice. Discussions with some distant relative of a neighbour's office colleague's friend were carried out in right earnest. Cousins, family doctor, college professor and "The Uncle" added their two bits of sagely advice.

The net result was complete confusion and a sense of helplessness. "Which coaching class should I join?" was a loud cry of anguish. Everbody seemed so logical and convincing. Every coaching class seems to have mentored the top 50 students who cracked the IIT entrance exams only to be followed by the student refuting these claims.

Oh God!!!...is there anyone out there who can be trusted and whose advice I should follow....was a prayer on my nephew's lips and probably also on thousands of young aspirants'.


Coaching Class - Studying Phase:

Having successfully navigated the turbulence and survived the avalanche of information and advice in the pre-admission stage, it is time to begin a year long tryst with long hours of coaching and tomes of data-information-knowledge.

It is surprising that no one bothers about the quality of education dished out by these coaching classes. They have de-facto become the new "Temples of Knowledge" which have the secret keys to the open some tough locks of the various entrance exams.

The nephew wades through all this with a grim face and needs to be reminded to smile once in a while. You have online tests, simulated tests, special coaching sessions, intensive camps, refreshers, subscribing to independent test series, counselling, interactive sessions with senior faculty on "Tips and Tricks", sample papers and what not. There are a hundred websites which claim to give that additional edge to the diligent aspirant.

Phew...!!! My head is reeling and I guess it shows as the previous para seems completely jumbled and definitely not in an logical order.

We also have to contend with memory enhancing pills, stress relievers and meditation techniques tweaked to suit the tired and over burdened teenager.

I now understand that with all this around we forget to smile once in a while. After all, this struggle is to lay foundation for a brilliant future. I guess "Momentary Pain for Lifelong Success" philosophy comes to the rescue and we rationalise our paranoia during that period.


I am already exhausted (now I know why I was not cut out to be an Engineer in the first place) and hope to gather my wits and resume on another rainy day with bhajias and hot tea.

Tyranny of Choice – Dilemma Facing School Children

My daughter has come to dread this question asked her by many of our relatives and family friends – “So, what do you plan to do after school”.

Her exasperated reaction – “I do not know….I am so confused…..There are so many choices and I cannot make up my mind”

This is the dilemma that our school going children face today. On one hand you have expectations of parents or peer pressure to handle. On the other, if you wish to research and list all options available before taking a decision – you are drowned in an avalanche of information and choice.

The intriguing and frustrating part is when commercial art seems as interesting as bio-technology or hotel management seems as exciting as a career in space engineering.

Cannot do both can we???? We definitely cannot switch from one to another without considerable pain and loss of academic years. In many cases it is just impossible to switch.

Let us have a closer look at what sort of choice we have.

We have at least forty major branches available in engineering. Add at least two dozen branches in medical and para-medical avenues.

Relatively straight forward avenues like Commerce have at least a dozen and half different courses at the graduate and post-graduate levels. This is followed by a mind boggling array of career options. We have the same situation in arts(all types), hospitality, languages, pure sciences, home sciences and perhaps in many other fields which I am not familiar with.

Are children or their parents supposed to sift through this information overload and come to some rational decision or is it easier and less painful to just flip a coin and decide.

Many a time, children change their minds on what they like and very often they come to dislike a subject or course because it does not meet their expectations or they encounter difficulties in understanding the same.

It has taken us adults so many years to find our true calling and, this is probably, the lucky minority. I believe a vast majority of adults feel trapped in what they do with little chance of a change.

Is it not, therefore, very unfair that our education system forces the choice of a career stream when we have barely begun to understand our own aptitude, likes and dislikes.

This certainly merits deeper thought and a move towards making our education system more flexible such that it equips a child to eventually find his / her own true calling.