No one wants to take up teaching!
Even the education institutions are not driven by any ideals!
It is money, money, all the way! Society and politics is changing. So too the soaring ambitions of the new generation! Also, education today has changed. It is no more a field to seek knowledge and competence! It is the most incompetent field, we mean, the education field and where all and sundry, the lettered and more successfully, the unlettered, the milkman and the film villain and many others they defy descriptions, which are the most successful Chancellors and founders of large number of education institutions, education complexes in the country today.
Take a trip to Tamil Nadu; perhaps in other states too, you see the huge buildings, even for secondary schools that defy your imagination and intellect. So, when we read that just recently a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resources Department has expressed serious concern over the shortage of teaching staff and delays in recruitments in higher education.
Of course for outsiders this high sounding committee report might look very powerful. Unfortunately it is not so. Only those who know what is what in HRD ministry and how it is overburdened with issues, from CBSE leak of question papers to corruption in Vice-Chancellor appointments to the VCs also indulging in large scale corruption!
Again in TN which of course has a high enrollment of students into higher education stream and also at the same time a number of VCs, old and new are caught in corruption trap and arrested and cooling their heels behind the bars! So, how to tackle in education some lowering of standards? Here we need inputs from experts. There are many such enlightened persons in the country. It is a question of calling such experts into action. We have to learn from other countries too.
Of course education in this generation has changed beyond recognition. There is any NUMBER OF NEW PROBLEMS in India. We seem to be tired of too many allegations of bad behavior on the part of society’s teachers and educators. Sexual harassment is a national shame. Also, there is a tendency towards centralization of authority in Delhi. Better learn to decentralize decision making. Even policy making can stop at the state capitals for a range of issues. The universities, more so the central universities, we all hoped, would set the trend for further progress. It seems now it is the reverse happening.
The very same Parliamentary Committee report gives out that the number of sanctioned posts in Central University is 16,600 out of which 9,521 are for assistant professors. But do you know how many are lying vacant? Here is the statistics. Nearly one third, 5,928 posts in these universities are lying vacant! So to other categories in the professorships!
All these problems in education seem too big to be tackled by the minister or his officials. We need outside talent and imagination and also the new technologies to deliver learning courses online and on other channels. Distance education without corruption, open universities and also some emphasis on innovation and quality are also some of the considerations we have to keep in mind.