That is what India needs at the moment! Internationally comparable standards!
In general education and medical education too!
See the appalling public health, in Gorakhpur and even in other states!
Swine flu threat is also spreading! Education is a public cause, not a private profit!
Indian character needs introspection! We are talkers, not doers!
How truthful we are to ourselves?
Fresh from a visit from Greece, classical Greece I am full of memories of the past! Know thyself!
So, what I write here have some echos too! As a nation, we have to learn to speak truth and also honestly! We seem to imagine there is only one god and others are lesser gods!
You see, the education sector in India is now at the cross-roads. On the one hand is the left-over issues in terms of policies. When the UPA government left government in 2014, many of the polici8es for the school education like RTI, education of the girl child and such progressive issues were in place. Only in higher education nothing much was happening.
Now, after three years of Modi government what is the new education agenda. Only some weak attempts to saffronise the agenda. One or two voices introduce some RSS agendas like reducing history to some unproven claims like a Hindutva views. Nothing in the way of what the world trends in learning and competing with the outside world. The middle class and also the awakened lower classes have sought only private schools and such high-fee charging fancy curriculum etc.
Even the latest issue like NEET in TN proves that not everyone opts for exempting the school leavers from an all India entrance test. Now with the latest Gorakhpur horror of children dying pathetically and also right in TN in the Ambuir government hospital two persons died for absence of doctors, who would dare to ask politically for an exemption of students undergoing a competent level of qualification.
We need high quality education. For what it is worth it is the private sector that gives competition to the government schooling.
As for higher education, it is in a mess. Right now in India!
The education minister is not seen talking to experts or notable educators. There is a trust deficit, sorry to say like that, in the present government’s commitment to very high quality international level higher education in the Indian universities.
So, what to do?
It is time the Central government really takes some serious note of this trust deficit. There is no way other than go with the international trends. The first requirement is to recognise the ground realities.
Unfortunately, today everything, from small detail to bigger issues, we seem to wait for the Prime Minister first to talk!
There is no feedback from experts and independent intellectuals even for such a sensitive topic like education.
We need now many specific demands. Supply of talents, skills in sectors like IT and why even in other areas like sciences and technologies.
There is the higher research. In various fields!
So, we request the government, the PM in particular to take a more objective view of the realities and call for the best talents, from Nobel winners to ones serving in foreign universities, ones who have expressed concern in these areas and make a high-power committee to revamp the education system.
Ideas matter. Ideologies really matter and so too our particular approach top specific areas of education.
All we can do in the brief space here is to reiterate our concerns, both short-term as well as long-term in what use such ideas and ideologies matter. We need a wholesome education.
As the motto of this journal is, education is a public cause, not a private profit. Seen in this perspective we need ungradation of our education vision. Let us not just teach for exams but teach and inculcate a sense of wholesome pursuits. Education, as cultural awareness, our history, and social changes, a more equitous and equal society.
Class room teaching, outdoor activities, sports and arts and culture all go into a wholesome education, right?
Upgrade some of the older universities, central universities like Santiniketan and even the traditional universities and open new departments in keeping India’s international standing and our aspirations for a world role. Peace, reconciliation, a functioning UN and other international agencies where India and Indians would play major roles.
What more and a bigger role a country like India, placed in the current context of so many conflicts can aspire for?